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England must be fed 


( page 17) 



A LAND-GIRL’S 
LOVE STORY 


BY 

BERTA RUCK 

Author of “His Official FMcee,” “In Another 
Girl’s Shoes,” “The Three of Hearts,” etc. 


With Illustrations by 
EDWARD C. CASWELL 



NEW YORK 

DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 
1919 



Copyright, 1919 
By MRS. GEORGE OLIVER 





©Cl. A 5 15011 


MAk 2b 1919 


TO 

ALL THE GIRLS I MET 
IN FARM, FIELD AND FOREST 
WISHING THEM THE BEST OF LUCK, 
AND LIFE, AND LOVE 
FROM BERTA RUCK 

Wales, 1918 




/ 
























































































































CONTENTS 


CHAPTER p AGE 

I “ Man Made the Town ” 1 

II Two Voices Call 12 

III The Toss-Up ........ 22 

IV The First Night in Camp 29 

V The First Job , .44 

VI The Farmhouse Meal 59 

VII After-Effects 69 

VIII The Plunge 78 

IX Our Mess-Mates 83 

X The Milking-Lesson 87 

XI The Land-Girls’ Letter-Bag .... 95 

XII We “ Get Used to It ” 99 

XIII An Invitation 108 

XIV The Hen-Wife 118 

XV Mostly Conversation 123 

XVI Curious Conduct of the Man-Hater . 138 

XVII Land-Girls go Shopping 146 

XVIII The Night of the Concert .... 159 

XIX The Surprise Turn 172 

XX Land Army Tests . . . . . . .184 

XXI The Man-Hater Discusses Men . . .191 

XXII Hay-Harvest 202 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 

XXIII 

XXIV 
XXV 

XXVI 

XXVII 

XXVIII 

XXIX 

XXX 

XXXI 

XXXII 

XXXIII 

XXXIV 

XXXV 

XXXVI 


PAGE 

Colonel Fielding Discusses “ Enjoy- 


ment ” 207 

Storm 212 

After the Rain . w ... . 218 

Colonel Fielding Discusses “ Love and 
the Like ” 227 

A Kitchen Courtship ...... 242 

The Onlooker 248 

Love — After the Interval .... 261 

Colonel Fielding Discusses “ The Mys- 
tery-Girl ” ........ 273 

A Few Facts About Richard Wynn . . 283 

Butter-Making — with Accompaniment 290 

“ Our ” Germans 300 

Harvest, Nineteen-Eighteen . . . 322 

“ Fire, Fire ! ” 330 

The Harvest-Moon 338 

Postscript — The Victory-Dance . . 348 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


PAGE 

England must be fed . . . . . . . Frontispiece 

“ I was going to ask you to j oin up for the Land 

Army” 20 ' 

We agreed that we were simply loving the life and the 

people, the work and the play . . . . . . 104? ^ 

Still leaning on the gate, Captain Holiday said: “ I’m 

glad the country won that toss ” 218 








A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


) 



I 



A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


CHAPTER I 

“ MAN MADE THE TOWN 99 


“What’s this dull town to me? 

Robin’s not near. 

What was’t I wished to see? 

What wished to hear? 

Where’s all the joy and mirth made this town a Heav’n on earth? 
Oh, they are . all fled with thee, Robin Adair ! ” 

— Scots Song. 


M ^HERE ! I told you what kind of a young 
man he was, Joan.” 

I only groaned; my elbows on the break- 
fast-table and my head buried in my hands. What 
does it matter what “ kind ” of young man he is, when 
you’re in love with him? 

" He’s a beauty,” declared my chum Elizabeth. She 
pushed back the letter which had come as such a knock- 
out to me. “ Who’s this * Muriel ’ who writes to tell 
you that she’s just seen Harry Markham off to Salon- 
ika, when you didn’t even know he’d got his orders ? ” 

“ It’s Muriel Elvey ; I introduced him to her myself at 
the theatre about a fortnight ago,” I explained, 
stunned. “ That very pretty girl who was at school 
1 


2 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


in Germany with me. I didn’t know they’d met again. 
. . . He didn’t say good-bye to me ! . . .” 

“Rotter,” snorted Elizabeth boyishly. 

But some of us would rather be happy with a charm- 
ing “ rotter ” than be bored for life by one of those 
prigs who never do anything wrong. 

Haggardly I stared at that letter with its gold- 
printed “ Muriel ” at the top, its whiff of Chaminade. 
Little Elizabeth scowled sympathetically. She always 
had had a grimace for the name of Captain Harry 
Markham, who had been my idol for the last year. 

(A rotter! What difference does that make!) 

For that year life was a whirl of thrills and pangs 
because of one young soldier-man’s black eyes and red 
tabs. At first it was all thrill. That’s bound to be 
when the Harry-type — a born fighter and philanderer 
— leader of men and misleader of women — fills up a 
girl’s horizon with his telephone-calls, his invitations, 
his flatteries — and himself. 

Feverishly happy, I blessed the job that kept me 
where he was. 

(And now this ! This !) 

My job was one of those that are described as “ thun- 
dering good for a girl.” It brought me in nearly three 
pounds a week, for I was secretary to a quite important 
official in one of those big rabbit-warren buildings in 
Whitehall that we call Ministries. It kept me indoors 
from ten a. m. until half-past six or seven or — if we’d 
a rush of work — eight o’clock at night. 

It kept nerve and brain on the stretch, too ! My 


“ MAN MADE THE TOWN ” 


3 


chief insisted upon taking the last ounce out of his 
under-strappers. Also, he had a horrible temper. But 
I accepted that as cheerfully as I accepted the stuffiness 
of that rabbit-warren, and the rushed lunches, and the 
work that was draining all the go-stuff out of me. 

You see, my people lived in the country, and — be- 
cause of Harry — I simply had to live in town. It 
would have killed me, I thought, to tear myself away 
from London and from our flat near Golder’s Green. 
This had been let, furnished, by an officer, now at the 
front, to me and my old school-chum, Elizabeth Weare, 
who was clerk at my rabbit-warren. We did our own 
housework and marketing and cooking, tired as we were, 
after our office-day was done. Sounds rather like all 
work and no play? But it wasn’t. 

There was play, to take it out of me more than work. 
Play turned my days into a succession of wild jumps 
across stepping-stones. The stones, of course, were 
the times when Harry took me out. I would have 
worked underground and consented never to see the light 
of day, provided that I still saw him. Ah, I’m not the 
first girl who has made Paradise out of bricks and mor- 
tar, just because they hold a Harry! 

I thought I was growing to mean to him as much as 
he meant to me. Elizabeth did warn me, but who ever 
takes any notice of these warnings from the looker-on 
who sees the game? And Elizabeth was by way of 
being a Man-Hater anyhow, so how put any trust in 
her opinion of my Prince Charming? 

Gradually there slipped through the thrill of it all 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


4 

the first pang of doubt. Surely he meant to propose? 
No? Yes? No? 

The pangs came oftener. Could he mean nothing? 
Just the flirtation that camouflages itself under the 
name of being great pals? Or would he presently say 
something? This was a wearing time, I can tell you. 
Presently the thrills grew fewer, the pangs more fre- 
quent. This is also bound to be when the Harry-type 
cools off again. Was he cooling? Wasn’t he? A see- 
saw of agony ! 

Slowly zest and colour began to fade out of the life 
that saw less and less of the young staff officer whose 
fancy I had amused for some months. 

Hope dies hard. 

Then a whole fortnight — this last one — went by 
without a sign from him. I hoped on, wildly, that some- 
thing would happen, and, finally, this very morning, 
something had happened with a vengeance! It had 
killed hope with a sledge-hammer. 

Devastating news came from that girl to whom I’d 
introduced him myself ! I might have known that 
Harry the Susceptible would fall to Muriel’s lovely 
little Lily-Elsie-like face ! At that German school 
they had all raved about it, I remember ; walking down 
Unter den Linden, Muriel had always been put between 
the two severest governesses, and even so the tightly- 
uniformed Prussian officers had followed and had 
jostled us in passing to try to steal one glance from 
“ die bild-hiibsche Englanderin's ” demure big eyes. 


“ MAN MADE THE TOWN ” 


5 


So those eyes had been the last into which Harry 
had smiled before he left Blighty again! I had never 
had another look ; I who adored him, who had been given 
to suppose that he returned it. 

Harry had gone. Gone ! Without a good-bye. 
Well — it was all over — finished — na poo ! 

I was left to make what I could of the situation. 

What could I do? 

Apparently nothing but gulp down my sugarless tea, 
push aside the stale war-bread with its one scrape of 
margarine that represented my breakfast, and set off 
for my day’s work, leaving Elizabeth to wash up. She 
had a day off from the rabbit-warren. I wished I had; 
I scarcely felt like coping with the office. 

“Poor old kid! Such is men,” grunted Elizabeth. 
“ You look absolutely played out.” 

“ Do I ? I needn’t ever bother again about how I 
look. That’s one comfort,” I sighed, as I crammed on 
my hat. 

This had an impertinent little wreath of coloured 
buds, and was lined with rose, because Harry said pink 
next to my face always suited me. I’d bought it to wear 
up the river with him. 

Oh, the pathos of these hats, these pretty frocks that 
have been specially bought for “some” man! Long 
after that man has ceased to care a button what one 
wears the hat is still fresh, the frock seems to go on and 
on. Things remain. It’s the people who change. I 
must have changed, too, after a blow in the face like 


6 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


that ! What had it done to me ? I gave one deliberate 
and searching glance at myself in the sitting-room look- 
ing-glass. 

It showed me a plain and weary girl, with ten years 
added to her actual age. A slim, stooping figure that 
moved without zest. Eyes without brightness. Hair 
ditto — where were “ the goldy lights ” that Harry once 
praised in my hair? It was as drab and dull as the 
whole of my outlook had grown in the last half-hour. 

I’d had what is called a ripping time, you see. Here 
was the bill I had to pay — low, secret misery, dark 
heaviness of heart, looks and girlishness lost — as I 
thought — for ever ! 

I stuffed into my bag the fateful letter that had 
knocked the bottom out of my world for me. 

“ You’re forgetting these,” Elizabeth reminded me, 
handing me a couple of other envelopes that lay un- 
opened by my plate. I hadn’t even noticed them. 

“ Haven’t time,” I said, pocketing them as I dashed 
down the four flights of brass-bound steps from our 
flat to the entrance. 

There was no sign that either of those unopened 
letters held anything out of the ordinary. In my 
own mind I had no presentiment of wonder to come. I 
thought I knew my fate, thanks. 

Let this be a lesson to any young woman who thinks 
the like. For when she is quite, quite sure that “ all is 
over ” for her, that is the moment when 46 All ” is pre- 
paring to begin. 


“MAN MADE THE TOWN” 


7 


Here I’ve given you my picture as I was all those 
weeks ago. Now skip those weeks and see the contrast; 
the picture of me as I am today. A straight and sup- 
ple body, all conscious of the Jest of living. Limbs 
rounded and firm. Face joyous, glowing, and clean- 
skinned under the tan. Hair glossy and full of gleams ; 
eyes bright as the morning, with the atmosphere of sun- 
shine and clean airs all round me. A new self, in fact, 
made by a new life. Thousands of girls all over the 
country at this moment can show the same miracle. 

I am going to tell you the story of how it happened 
to me. 

* * * * * * * 

I had to rush for my Tube train, only in time to be 
held up by that exasperating wooden barrier, while the 
corncrake voice of the official rasped out: “ Stand back, 
there 1 ” And the train did not move out for another 
good half-minute. 

Fuming, I waited on the platform, squashed against 
that barrier by the crowd who pressed behind me — a 
crowd who looked nervy and strained, and who — to 
put it mildly — smelt. Well, any business girl who 
glances at her light blouse after a day’s work in town 
will know what I mean. I myself must have looked 
about as cheery as that face one sometimes catches 
sight of at the small square window of a black prison- 
van. 

The only air and exercise I ever got in those days 
were in the three hundred yards’ walk from our Man- 
sions to the Tube, and in the two minutes’ scurry at 


8 A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 

the other end from the Tube station to the rabbit-war- 
ren. 

I hung on to a strap all the way to Charing Cross, 
hating everything. That letter seemed to have laid 
open all my nerves ; they were j arred by the j ostling 
passengers, by the conductor’s raucous shouts, by the 
very advertisements of patent medicines and boot pol- 
ish on the Tube walls, by the steps, the lift, in fact, 
everything to do with the loathsome journey. 

At the office I got a black look from my chief, Mr. 
Winter, and a stinging comment on my lateness. I’d 
had them before, but then I’d scarcely noticed them. 
Now the daily round seemed unbearable. 

When I had Harry to look forward to in the evening, 
it scarcely mattered how my day was spent. But now 
— ye gods ! I suddenly found everything rankling — 
the look of the rabbit-warren’s dingy corridors and 
annexes, the click of the typewriters, the whir of the 
telephone bells, and the Cockney accents of some of the 
workers ! 

And worst of all was the inevitable office smell, made 
up of so many horrors. I put them in their order of 
unpleasantness : — 

The hot iron of the water pipes. 

Ink. 

Dust. 

Common yellow soap. 

The sink. 

Stale office towels. 

Cigars. 


“ MAN MADE THE TOWN ” 


9 


Ail this sounds an unmitigated grouse! But I have 
to get it over, showing you the perfectly revolting time 
I had. Sunlight and sweet air have since streamed 
into my days. But how can I forget the stuffiness 
of Mr. Winter’s room? 

“ Can’t we keep that window shut? ” was my chief’s 
motto. 

The one extremely grimy window gave on to White- 
hall, and to open even a crack of it let in all the 
noise of the traffic. 

“ Can’t we have that window kept SHUT ? ” 

The last word rang out like the crack of a whip 
almost before I got in, on this particular morning. 

I shut the window and got to work, suddenly won- 
dering, “ Shall I go on like this until I’m eighty ? ” My 
job for that beastly morning was to check long columns 
of figures on blue paper, with a form-number at the top, 
from duplicate lists. 

Thrilling ! 

My eyes swam and my head throbbed as I muttered 
to myself over the table : 66 Nine thousand three hundred 
and sixty-five pounds nineteen shillings and a penny. 
Nine thousand three hundred and sixty-five pounds 
nineteen and a penny. (Tick off.) Two thousand 
four hundred and ten pounds eleven shillings,” and so 
on. The lists almost invariably tallied, but one dared 
not risk an error. 66 Nine thousand three hundred 
and ! ” 

What a life! I saw it now as it was. That letter 
had opened my eyes. Oh, to get away from it all ! 


10 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


At lunch-time I went out, avoiding the chattering 
throng of girls. It was one of those sultry early- 
Spring days that seem hotter than July. All the 
luncheon-places were as full up as the Tube had been. 
I could not wait for a seat in that atmosphere of not- 
too-cheap but nasty food. 

Eggs that were “ fresh in places,” badly poached, on 
toast limp with water, and never a suspicion of butter 
— fish that had said good-bye to the sea many days 
ago ; or burnt pieces of bacon swimming in thin fat — 
all these presented unpalatable realities which I felt 
absolutely unable to face that day of days. 

Sickened, I turned back into the glare of Trafalgar 
Square. I sat down listlessly in the only patch of shade 
that I could find, on the steps of the National Gallery. 
I looked across the bone-dry fountains where wounded 
soldiers were swinging their blue-trousered legs. I 
gazed gloomily past the Nelson Column, down White- 
hall, with its ’buses and people. 

Ants on a human ant-heap, struggling for life — 
but was it worth living? Deep in my heart the thought 
persisted, “ I must get out of this. I can’t stand it. 
How can I get away ? ” 

Half-consciously my hand went to my bag to feel for 
the letter that had blackened existence. I hadn’t 
looked at it again since Elizabeth had indignantly 
pushed it back to me. My fingers met the two other 
letters, not yet opened. 

“ May as well see what they are,” I thought, drearily. 

One was a rather terrifying bill for shoes. Well, it 


“ MAN MADE THE TOWN ” 


11 


would be the last of its kind — it’s love that comes so 
ruinously expensive in nice shoes and stockings ! 

The other was in a clear, strong hand-writing that 
I didn’t know, and it had been forwarded on from my 
home. 

I opened it. 

Picture me, a speck of navy-blue and white on the 
grey steps. London glaring and blaring beyond me* 
and in my hand the scrap of paper — the second letter 
that was to fall upon me like a thunderbolt. First, 
Muriel’s about Harry. Now this. I’d been actually 
carrying it about with me all the morning unopened, 
cheek-by- j owl with that other letter! 

Listen to it ! 

Except that it was dated from some barracks, I 
didn’t notice the address. My eye had at once caught 
the first sentence: 

“ My dear Joan, — They say a woman never for- 
gets the first man who has kissed her ” 

Wouldn’t those words give any girl a jolt? They 
startled me, even in my stricken state. “ The first 
man who’d ever kissed me ” — but the first and only 
man had been Harry himself! What on earth was 
the meaning of this, in a stranger’s handwriting? It 
went on: 

“ That is why I have the cheek to write to you. 
Now you’ll turn to the end of this letter to see who I 
am.” 

Exactly what I found myself doing, breathlessly ! 


CHAPTER II 


TWO VOICES CALL 

“Do you remember that day in November 

Long, long ago; long ago?” 

— Old Song. 

“Who’ll grow the bread of Victory? 

Who’ll keep the country clean? 

Who’ll reap Old England golden? 

Who’ll sow her thick and green? 

Carry on, carry on! for the men and boys are gone, 

But the furrow shan’t lie fallow while the women carry on.” 

— Janet Begbie. 

T HE signature of the letter was — 

“ Yours, 

66 Richaed Wynn.” 

Now, who in the world might he be ? Richard Wynn ? 
Wynn? 

Ah! Suddenly I realized why the surname at least 
was f amiliar. Mr. Wynn ! Of course ! I placed him, 
now. I did remember. Sitting there, wan, on this the 
most miserable morning of my life, my thoughts were 
switched back just seven years. 

Seven mortal years ago ! A gap between a disil- 
lusioned young woman of twenty-two and a gawky 
eager child of fifteen, as I then was. 

That had been in the days when we lived on the bor- 
ders of Wales. My father had farmed, in a scrambling 
sort of way, the small estate that he owned there, and 

12 


TWO VOICES CALL 


13 


as he had to make ends meet somehow, he had taken in a 
trio of hobbledehoys as farm pupils — what they’d 
learnt from dear old Dad’s antiquated methods good- 
ness only knows. 

Mr. Wynn was the eldest of these pupils. I don’t 
think I’d ever taken as much interest in him as I had in 
the fox terrier puppy that he gave me just before he 
sailed for the ranch of an uncle in Canada. But I had 
hated his going away. I always did hate partings, even 
from the succession of mountain-bred cooks who stayed 
their six months with us. On that gloomy autumn 
morning, with the mountains blotted out by mist and 
the rain coming down in a steady drip-drip-drip on the 
slate roof, when we had all gathered in the veranda to 
say good-bye to the departing pupil I had suddenly felt 
like bursting into tears. 

Mr. Wynn, the leggy, dark-haired Welsh lad of nine- 
teen, had turned with his brand-new suit-case all ready 
labelled in his hand, had seen my blank look, had 
stared down upon me and had clutched me by the pig- 
tail as I turned to flee. 

“ Nice kid, ripping kid,” he’d muttered in a brusque, 
touched young voice. “ Give us a kiss for good-bye, 
Joan.” 

And he’d drawn my head back by its plait and kissed 
me under the eyes of my amused family. They had 
ragged me about it for months. How should I, at that 
age, have guessed the difference between that and a real 
kiss? Years later Harry had slipped the real kisses 
into my life, in the course of conversation, so to speak, 


14 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


and by imperceptible degrees, which was Harry’s in- 
sidious way of making love — none the less fatal ! 

Now, on the very day when love had left me in a way 
so very far from being imperceptible, here was this 
reminder from that other, forgotten young man, that 
went on: 

“ Plenty of things have happened since we said good- 
bye; but I’ve often wondered what became of the pretty 
kid with the thick brown pigtail. You’d a blue bow on 
it that day, and you never noticed that I walked off 
with that. I suppose there’s just an off-chance that 
you are not married yet. Are you? If you aren’t, 
would you care to marry me ? ” 

I gasped as I came to this. Who wouldn’t have been 
petrified ? 

“ Would you care to marry me? ” 

But how — how fantastic ! At breakfast- time upon 
this very day I’d had conveyed to me the devastating 
news that the one young man on whom my thoughts had 
hung wished to see no more of me. Now, at midday, 
here was shock No. 2. Another young man, of whom 
I hadn’t thought since I was grown up, was actually 
proposing to me. 

Both on one day ! 

Was I living in some wild dream of coincidences? 
But no. The Harry-wound went on aching steadily 
beyond this flash in the pan even as I read on. 


“ It sounds mad, I know.” 


TWO VOICES CALL 


15 


The writer actually admitted it. 

“ I’d explain details and things better if I saw you. 
May I come and see you? If so, please write to me 
here, where I shall be for the next ten days. I could 
get over to your father’s place. This needn’t commit 
you to anything. But if it is all off, don’t write. If 
I don’t hear from you within a week I shall know it was 
good-bye for good. — Yours, Richard Wynn.” 

Stupefied, I sat staring at his letter. 

Now a proposal of marriage from almost any young 
man in this world would bring its special thrill to almost 
any girl. This, quite apart from whether she accepts 
it or refuses. Isn’t that true, girls? 

So it shows what a stupor of despair I was in that 
morning, when I tell you that only for a fleeting mo- 
ment did I forget my troubles in the excitement of this 
Mr. Wynn’s letter. 

I sighed as I got up, feeling a little dizzy from my 
perch on the National Gallery steps, for St. Martin’s 
Church clock showed half-past one, and it was time I 
started walking slowly back to that revolting office. 
I’d had no lunch, but lunch-time would be considered 
over by the time I had crawled down Whitehall again. 
Heavens ! How I hated Whitehall, and wished that I 
never need set eyes upon . . . 

Here the quite wild idea sprang into my mind. 

“ What about this way out of it ? What if this were 
what I was longing for, the chance of a completely 


16 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


new life? Something to whisk me right away out of 
everything that I knew in the days of Harry ! Here’s 
this Mr. Richard "Wynn — who was quite a nice young 
man, if I could only remember his face a little bit more 
distinctly — asking to marry me. What if I said 
‘Yes’? Since I was not to marry Harry, what did 
it matter what sort of a man I did marry? But what 
was he like? ” 

Frowning, I tried to remember. Dark, tall, Norfolk 
jacket, loved dogs — that was as far as I got. Not a 
detail of his face could I recall ! An unawakened girl- 
child, as I was seven years ago, takes scant notice of 
masculine faces. All she thinks of them is “ How ugly 
they are ; how very unlike the people in books that the 
beautiful ladies are always falling in love with ” — and 
that’s the summing-up of it for her, until she is seven- 
teen or so. (Unless she’s of the type of my little chum 
Elizabeth, who at twenty-one continued to hold this 
view.) 

But what about this Richard Wynn, who at nineteen 
had seemed a century older than I ? 

Nowadays, I should not consider as a grown-up man 
that youth who’d devoured such platefuls of cold mutton 
and bread and cheese at my father’s table. I wondered 
listlessly how he’d grown up. Quite cold-bloodedly — 
for remember what I was going through — I began to 
debate whether I’d say I would see him. It might be 
better than the office; better than living exactly the 
same life day after day, without Harry. And Harry 
would hear if I got engaged. 


TWO VOICES CALL 


17 


How many engagements, I wonder, are entered into 
in the mood in which I was at that darkest of moments ? 

I thought, “ If I write ” 

Then my thoughts were broken into by something 
very different. 

I’d already noticed, while only half-seeing it, that a 
little crowd had collected down in Trafalgar Square 
about the spot where the Tank Bank stood in the 
spring, a crowd composed of Colonial soldiers, of bare- 
headed factory girls from Charing Cross Road, of girl 
clerks from the countless Government offices round 
about. 

Without much interest I glanced over the stone 
coping. Above the heads of the thickening crowd I 
saw a banner. It was white, with the scarlet-lettered 
motto : 


“ England Must Be Fed.” 

There was a group on the small raised platform be- 
neath it, an elderly man in a frock-coat, some ladies, 
and the gleam of a light smock. Some one w T as speaking 
underneath that flag. In the sultry midday air I sud- 
denly heard, fresh and clear, a girlish voice. These 
were the scraps that came to me : 

“ I appeal to you girls in this crowd. Some of you 
are country-born girls, like me. I’m from Wales. My 
county was a green county. It is now a red county — 
ploughed up to help carry on the war. But must we 
look at these fields full of crops and think, 6 These will 


18 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


rot in the ground because there will never be hands 
enough to carry them in 9 ? 99 

Ah ! Land Army ! 

I’d heard of this before, and now Trafalgar Square 
saw girls being recruited as, three years ago, it 
saw young men being asked why they were not in 
khaki. 

Then the speaker’s young voice rose earnestly to 
my listless ears : 

“ I have put before you the disadvantages of this life. 
Long hours. Hard work. Poor pay. After you get 
your board and lodging a shilling a day, perhaps. 
Very poor pay. But, girls — our boys at the Front 
are offering their lives for just that. Won’t you offer 
your services for that — and for them? 

The voice attracted me, the Welsh voice that holds 
the secret of being clear, yet soft, with the ends of its 
words pronounceH as crisply as by a well-trained singer. 
It held me, that voi^, while the speaker touched on the 
urgent need of workers to fill the places of men, who had 
gone from farm, field, dairy and byre. 

Ah, the charming picture that sl^made ! A bright, 
sturdy flower of girlhood set against the parched stone- 
work of Town ! She wore the Land Girl’s uniform that 
sets off a woman’s shape as no other costume has done 
yet. Under her slouch-hat her face was vividly brown 
and rose-coloured, with dark eyes alight. Her fresh, 
light belted smock, with its green armlet and scarlet 
crown, looked cool as well as trim. 

The sight of her, I thought, should bring in as many 


TWO VOICES CALL 


19 


recruits as the speech. She looked as if she’d never 
dreamt of such things as unventilated offices, type- 
writers that clicked mechanically all day, nervous head- 
aches, lives soured and blighted at twenty-two ! Envi- 
ously I glanced at her. Suddenly — was it my imag- 
ination ? — she looked straight back at me over the 
heads of the crowd. It was to me she seemed to be 
speaking now. 

44 You are offered some good things in this new life, 
girls. Good health. Good sleep ” 

Here I smiled bitterly. Good sleep. . . . I’d had 
a whole fortnight of hideously broken nights. 

44 There’s no sleep like that of the worker on the 
land ! ” declared the recruiting land girl. 

44 Another thing you’re offered is a good conscience 
with which to meet those lads when they return from 
fighting for you. Lastly — though I don’t know if 
it’s worth mentioning, really ” — here^her white teeth 
flashed in a merry smile across her rosy face — “ you 
are offered a good complexion ! ” 

Then something else unexpected happened. She 
jumped lightly down, and it was first of all to me — 
me ! — that she made her way. 

Straight up to me she came. She looked me full in 
the face, smiled prettily, and in that clear voice that 
sounded home-like to me because my home had been 
where she, too, came from, she said : 

44 I’ve been watching you all the time I’ve been 
speaking. I want to say something to you.” 

44 You want to speak to me? ” I said, surprised. 


20 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


66 1 noticed you at once,” said the Land Girl. “ You 
looked — well, not very pleased with life.” 

Here a passer-by glanced at the contrast we made 
standing there: Government office clerk and Land Girl. 
She, in smock and breeches, radiated rosy health; I, 
wearing my blue costume, Frenchy blouse, flower- 
wreathed hat and Louis-heeled shoes, wilted in limpness 
and pallor. 

She said prettily : 

“ Are you on war-work of any kind? ” 

u Yes, I am. I work at ” I gave her the 

rabbit-warren’s real name. 

Her bright face fell. 

“ What a pity. We’re told not to try for recruits 
who are engaged in other departments. I was going 
to ask you to join up for the Land Army.” 

“ I ! Oh, I should be no earthly good at that sort 
of thing,” I assured her pettishly, I’m afraid. “ I 
must get back to the office.” 

“ A pity,” remarked the fair recruiter regretfully. 
“ Perhaps you’ve a friend who’s not so busy. Would 
you pass these on? ” 

I took the leaflets she offered. 

“ Good-bye,” she said. Once out of sight of that 
energetic young worker, I rolled her papers into a ball 
and tossed them into a county council waste-paper bin. 

That is, I thought I did. 

My head ached so desperately that I hardly knew 
what I was doing by the time I got out of the glare of 
Whitehall and into the gloom of the office. 



ENGLAND 


**U$T BE 


“J was going to ask you to join up for the Land Army 



TWO VOICES CALL 


21 

I was before Mr. Winter, the chief who disliked me 
as much as he disliked open windows. Here was my 
chance to let in an apology for a breath of air. I 
tugged at the window. It was stiff. Down it came 
at last. But the effort had been too much for me in 
my run-down state ; it made me feel positively sick. 

Then came the last straw. 

Suddenly, unexpectedly, Mr. Winter rasped out be- 
hind me: 

" Can’t you keep that window shut? ” 

I jumped violently — think of the morning I’d had. 
I forgot myself. 

“ Don’t shout at ” I began. But all in an in- 

stant the office became dark as night. I threw out my 
hands. Then I pitched forward on my face, knowing 
no more. 

I had fainted dead away. 

Half an hour later I was sent home, after Mr. Winter 
had leapt at his chance of telling me that I was obvi- 
ously not strong enough for war-work, and that I need 
not present myself at these offices any more. Perhaps 
he was scarcely justified. Perhaps he wanted to 
frighten me into an appeal. But I didn’t say a word, 
I was too dazed. 

Sacked ! 

Well, after that, I thought, there was only one thing 
for me to do. 


CHAPTER III 


THE TOSS-UP 

“ And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss.” — Kipling. 

ELIZABETH! What should you say if I were 
to accept an offer of marriage? ” I demanded 
-■> — « abruptly. 

This was after I’d got back to the flat, had flung my- 
self down on my bed with the announcement that I’d 
been sacked from the rabbit-warren, and had turned 
thirstily to the tea that my chum had brought in at 
once. 

Washed-out, I lay against the pillow, while Elizabeth 
did the ministering angel in a boyish shirt, and with 
thick black locks “ bobbed ” about her square-chinned 
little face. 

Elizabeth is the most loyal pal who ever barked out 
home-truths at a chum, waiting on her hand and foot 
the while . . . Oh, girl-friends ! What would life be 
without them when men forsake us by desertion and 
death, when other men overwork us and harry us, and 
when all men (as it sometimes seems) misunderstand 
us ! Men don’t believe in loyal and lasting friendships 
between women. Elizabeth, in return, never believed 
much in men. 

“ Offer of marriage?” she retorted. <fi What are 
you raving about? ” 


22 


THE TOSS-UP 


23 


Between sips of tea I gave her the story of the letter 
that I had taken away unopened that morning. 

“ Asks me to write within the week, unless it was to be 
good-bye for good ! 99 I concluded. 66 What do you 
think of it? 99 

“ Shell-shock,” Elizabeth promptly suggested. 
“ Poor fellow ! Must be quite off his head. How long 
was he out at the Front, Joan? ” 

“ How should I know? I only know he wrote from 
those barracks.” 

“ You don’t know his regiment or anything?” 

“ Not a thing. Not the colour of his eyes, or why 
he never wrote to me before, or where he’s been for the 
last seven years, or what doing. Absolutely nothing 
do I know about him. Except that he wants me to be 
his wife ! 99 

My stupor of the morning had given way to a re- 
action of bravado; I laughed into Elizabeth’s little 
steady face. 

<£ Knew you weren’t serious,” she said. “ I’m glad 
you’re bucking up, though. It’s quite a mercy that 
you have got the sack. You’d have had to go home 

and take things easy for a bit in any case, so ” 

Here I interrupted her with more vigour than I’d felt 
capable of all day. 

“ Go home?” I echoed, really nettled. “ D’you 
imagine that I’m going home after this? Not much! 

Go home ! Go back to ” I took a long breath to 

underline the words — “ to Agatha? ” 

Now, Agatha was my young stepmother. 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


U 

Nobody could find fault with Agatha. She was 
sensible, quiet, admirably domesticated, a splendid 
needlewoman and parish worker, an excellent wife to 
Dad, and always tactful towards his grown-up children. 
Only — well, Agatha was a person who never made a 
mistake in her life. And the people who do make head- 
strong, passionate, idiotic mistakes — well, is it to that 
sort of person that they turn when they’re in trouble? 
I ask you. 

Elizabeth shook her cropped head. She had to see it. 

“ What will you do, then? Try for another job in 
town, I suppose? ” 

“ Oh, I don’t care what I do ! ” I said wearily. 
“ There aren’t many things I can do. Marrying this 
young man is one of them, anyway. Why shouldn’t I? 
All marriage is a ghastly risk. Especially when a girl 
knows she can never, never care for anybody.” 

It was here that Elizabeth, that good chum, took me 
fairly in hand. 

“ I’ll talk now,” she said. u You listen.” And she 
began to talk coolly and helpfully and like a dose of 
bromide, which was what I needed at that point. 

“ You said there weren’t many things you could do. 
Home’s off. You’re not rich enough to do nothing, so 
you must do something. That means you either marry 
for a job — lots of girls do, poor wretches — or take 
one. I suppose your precious Winter isn’t too chilly to 
give you a reference? ” 

“ I daresay he’s warmer now he’s got that window 
shut ! ” I answered languidly. 


THE TOSS-UP 


25 


“ Then you’re left with the choice of doing a sensible 
thing or a silly one,” Elizabeth declared. 66 You go 
into another Government office, or you marry this man, 
who may drink or squint or have a beard for all you 
know.” 

“ He used not to,” I murmured with my eyes closed. 

“ Oh, you do remember so much about him? I say, 
could I see his letter? ” 

“ Of course. Rummage in my bag for it, will you? — 
but I’ve told you all that was in it.” 

“ I’d like to see the writing,” said Elizabeth, rum- 
maging. Presently I heard her say “ Hullo ! ” in a 
more alert voice. I opened my eyes interested — Eliza- 
beth was scanning a paper. It was headed : — 

“ Women’s Land Army.” 

“ I thought I threw those things away,” said I. 
“ Can’t you find the letter? ” 

“ No,” said Elizabeth. “ No other letter here.” 
Instantly I realized what I had done. 

“ It was Mr. Wynn’s letter that I threw away,” 
I exclaimed dismayed. “ Address and all. I thought 
it was those pamphlets. How silly of me! Now I 
can’t write to Mr. Wynn ! ” 

“ That settles that,” said the practical Elizabeth, 
“ and leaves you to take another Government office 
job or ” 

She paused for emphasis, looked straight at me. 
“ Or this ! ” 


26 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


Here she waved the paper she’d been studying. 
It showed pictures of smiling girls in smocks 
and breeches, busy. They were making butter, they 
were stacking fodder, they were feeding baby calves 
out of buckets. Underneath the photographs was 
written : 

“ Will YOU do this? ” 

I stared at Elizabeth. 

“Join the Land Army! Me!” 

44 Yes, you. Do your bit. They say England wants 
feeding. It looks like it ” — she glanced at the com- 
fortless tray — 44 so go and help, Joan.” 

“ Would you like to, yourself? ” I retorted. 

“Me?” cried Elizabeth in turn. “Nothing would 
induce me, thanks. I should loathe it ! ” 

“Yet you think I ought to join up!” 

“ Best thing for you,” declared my chum briskly. 
“ Help your country, work in the open, get fit, and for- 
get there are such things as men ! ” 

“ All very well for you to talk in that gay and airy 
way about 4 forgetting,’ ” I retorted, nettled again. 

44 You wait ! If ever your time comes ” 

44 Ha!” jeered Elizabeth, putting back her bonnie 
little head of a page, and squaring her shoulders. 

« If | » 

She looked like the Princess of that fairy-tale on 
whom the fairies laid a curse that she should never 
marry a man she loved because, on her bridal night, 
she herself would be turned into a lad. 


THE TOSS-UP 27 

“ Stranger things have happened,” I threatened her, 
46 than a girl like you falling in love in the end.” 

44 Yes. A girl like you getting over it. That’s 
happened before now,” retorted the downright little 
Man-hater. 44 Now, what about this Land Army idea? ” 

44 But — but I should hate every minute of it ! ” I 
objected. 

44 Worse than marrying the wrong person? ” mur- 
mured Elizabeth. 

Here an odd thing happened. At those words 44 the 
wrong person ” there flashed into my mind for the first 
time the thought that has visited it, ah l how often 
since then, in spite of Harry, in spite of my not caring 
what happened now. In spite of everything, it struck 
me, 44 If I never hear anything more about this Mr. 
Wynn, it will be a pity.” Yes, at the time I felt that. 

44 What a toss-up everything is,” I said recklessly. 
44 Shall I go to work in breeches and a smock? Or 
shall I get married? Heads or tails? Have you a 
penny, Elizabeth?” t 

44 Don’t be silly.” 

44 1 mean it. Have you a penny ? ” 

44 Put my last into the gas meter ! ” 

44 Then I’ll try this.” I took up the remaining dry 
biscuit from the bread platter. 44 England must be 
fed,” I quoted. 44 Heads I go and help to feed her. 
Tails I marry for a job. Heads is the side with the 
maker’s name on. Now!” 

I spun the biscuit into the air. Gambling with Eng- 
land’s food! 


28 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


It came down, spun on the empty platter, fell flat. 

With quite a thrill I bent to see the result of my 
toss. 

“ Heads ! ” 

“ Land Army ! ” cried Elizabeth, throwing up her 
head. “ We’re for it ! ” 

4 

I turned to her. 

« We? ” 

“Looks like it! Suppose I’ve got to join up with 
you,” grumbled my chum, who was always better than 
her word, “ and see what comes ! ” 

* * * * # * * 

A fortnight later we were both glancing at the set of 
our new Land Army hats in the narrow strip of mirror 
of a railway carriage, bound for the countryside. 


CHAPTER IV 


THE FIRST NIGHT IN CAMP 


“Why did I leave my little back-room in Bloomsbury?” 


— Victorian Song. 



IRAN SFORMATION scene. 


From a London office to a Land Girls’ Camp 
in Mid-Wales. From a cramped, sixth-story 


flat looking down on slums to that big light hut set 
among the woods that peeped a green “ welcome ” in 
at the many windows. 

Every window was wide open on that first evening 
when Elizabeth and I got down to the camp. 

Our first impressions of it? Well! I can only say we 
were not “ out ” to be encouraged, or to like anything 
at all at that moment! Tired, stiff from our journey, 
awkward in our unfamiliar uniform and heavy boots, 
we followed the young forewoman who’d met us at the 
tiny station called “ Car eg,” and had piloted us up and 
down what seemed interminable miles of lanes to this 
hut. 

A queer, surprisingly ugly place, this long bare 
building ! Corrugated iron without, matchboarding 
within, with bare floors, trestle tables, and kitchen- 
chairs. It had been intended for a parish hall for meet- 
ings and sales of work; but the platform had been 
taken away, and the whole building turned into a bar- 


29 


so 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


racks for girl-workers. Land Army slouch hats and 
brown raincoats hung from the pegs, gay-coloured 
prints were pinned upon the unvarnished walls, and 
flowers stood about in glass jam-jars. 

The place resounded with laughter and talk. It was 
clustered with Camp-ites, who wore the same rig as our 
own. We still felt as if we were in fancy-dress. But 
these other light smocks and laced-up leggings and hob- 
nailed boots all bore the signs of honest wear and tear 
from the work for which they were designed. 

These girls had “ worked themselves and their clothes 
in ” to the new job. On that first evening they looked 
to us a race apart. They made me feel a nervous and 
apologetic weed! They were a bewildering crowd. 

“ Now, you girls ! Make a bit of room at this end 
of the table,” ordered the forewoman cheerily. “ Here 
are the two new workers for the training depot. 
They’re to live here.” 

Faces turned from each side of the long mess-table 
towards us. The babel of talk died down. There was 
a scraping of chairs on the scrubbed floor. A girl 
jumped up and fetched cups; another pushed aside one 
of the glass gallipots that held sheaves of blue-bells 
and marsh-yellows all down the table. 

“That’s right. You sit here, will you? Room for 
a little one ! ” — the little one being Elizabeth, who 
seemed to have shrunk since she put on breeches, 
into some small, shock-headed, pale and defensive boy. 
“ And you, Vic, look after this other one.” 

“What’s your name?” from the forewoman. 


31 


THE FIRST NIGHT IN CAMP 

“Matthews? Joan Matthews! Sit down, Joan; have 
your tea. There’s plenty more milk in the big jug; 
and pass up that bit of rhubarb pie for them. They’re 
all the way from London.” 

“London!” chorused the girls at the table in a 
variety of voices. 

“ London, fancy ! ” 

“ Eustem ! All change ! Stand clear o’ the 
gates ! ” sang out one, in gruff imitation. “ Air-raid 
shelter this way! Full up, full up! Pass along 
there.” 

“ Piccadilly, theatres and shops ! ” 

“ Bond-street ! ” 

“ ’Igh-street ! ” 

“ Dear old giddy London ! ” 

“ Bit of a change to Careg Camp, isn’t it? ” 

“ Yes, it is,” I admitted, and in the breezy laughter 
my voice was drowned, also my heartfelt sigh. 

For a sudden wave of regret swept over the whole 
of my tired being. I wondered what had possessed 
me to leave London. It was going to be awful ! Why 
had I been so mad as to fill up those forms which that 
girl had given me in Trafalgar Square, and to make 
those inquiries, and to attend that Selection Committee 
and that Medical Board? 

Why had I let Elizabeth — who was looking gloomy 
enough on her side of the table — persuade me to take 
this silly step? Why on earth did I join the Land 
Army for twelve months, agreeing to go wherever I was 
sent? Here they’d sent us into the wilds of the coun- 


32 A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 

try — hundreds of miles away from every soul we knew, 
into this bare barn of a place and this mob of strange 
girls ! 

There! Now one of them who’d finished tea sprang 
up — sprang as if it were the beginning instead of the 
end of a working day — went to the piano at the other 
end of the hall, and began to rattle out gay music; 
and then two others were jumping up, too, taking each 
other by the hands in a clear space of the room and 
swinging into a two-step — dancing ! After they’d 
been working on a farm-course all day ! 

They were all so bursting with “ go ” and chattering 
spirits that I felt I could never cope with them. Never 
should I make friends ! Never should I attain to any- 
thing they could do! Never accustom myself to the 
strangeness of all this! 

Here I was, a fish out of water. Even if I were 
miserable in London, it’s better to be wretched in a 
place that you’re used to, and where you’re not ex- 
pected to make any unwonted efforts, or to be both- 
ered by fresh people. Yes ! Would to goodness I’d 
stuck it in London, instead of rushing out of that 
frying-pan into this fire. 

Absolutely “ out of it all ” and miserable, I expect 
my thoughts showed in my face as I sat there. For 
a bright-eyed girl opposite, with riotous red hair and 
a rounded throat starred with freckles, leaned across, 
smiled, and remarked in the deep, soft contralto of 
Southern Wales: 

“ Sure to feel strange at first ! Longing for home. 


THE FIRST NIGHT IN CAMP 


I was the first ten days. Oh, I would have bought 

myself out and packed up. I would, indeed ” she 

paused, and turned to the girl sitting beside me. 
“ But they won’t want to get back to town after they’ve 
been here a bit, will they, Vic? ” 

The big dark Land Girl “ Vic,” who sat next to 
me, showed all her white teeth in a large and friendly 
grin. 

“ Ah, you’ll be all right. You wait till you’ve 
stopped down here a couple of weeks, Celery-face, 
and your own boy won’t know you again ! ” she as- 
sured me in a ringing Cockney accent that set all 
the others laughing delightedly. 

How popular she seemed ! Good-natured, too. 
Presently I found her taking Elizabeth and me under 
her wing W T hile the other girls went on with their 
various occupations. 

None of them seemed to want to fling herself down 
and rest, doing absolutely nothing — which was all I 
should feel fit for, I thought gloomily. From the 
scullery-shed outside the hut came the sound of clink- 
ing crockery and of laughter, as two of the girls 
washed up. Overpoweringly cheery young women ! 
I thought, peevish with fatigue. 

Vic’s Cockney voice rose above the rest of the chat- 
ter, proffering encouragement and information. 

“ You’ll be surprised!” she declared. “You won’t 
want to leave, ever ” 

Chill silence from us. 

“You’ll see it’s a fine life when you get your hand 


34 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


in at the work,” she continued, undaunted by our 
silence. “ Tomorrow morning you start. I’ll take 
you along to Mr. Price ; he’s the farmer at the Practice 
place. Oh, he’s all right, Mr. Price is; and her, too. 
They won’t be hard on you, seeing you’ve never worked 
before. ... Oh! You have worked? . . . Oh, in busi- 
ness. Ah! that’s a lady’s job. This other’s all 
right, though. Don’t you go telling ’em you know all 
about farming just because you’ve made hay once or 
twice on your holidays ” 

“ I wouldn’t,” I assured her. 

“ Oh! Well, I did. Talk about laugh ever since! ” 
chuckled Vic. “ Why, you don’t know how much you 
don’t know until you start in the Land Army ! Why, 
one of the wounded Tommies from the hospital here 
says to me on the road just now, 6 Are you on the land, 
miss?’ I said, 6 Well, I’m not on the sea!”’ 

Much appreciative laughter from her friends 
greeted this repartee, which, I believe, was then 
new. 

“ 6 No,’ he says to me, 4 but I bet you was all at 
sea the first time you tried to milk the cow ! ’ I says, 
‘You’re right!’ I was, too! You see how you get 
on with it,” to me. “ Seven o’clock they milk.” 

" Seven ! ” I murmured, dismayed. In London I 
was never out of bed before the postman knocked. 

“And where,” asked Elizabeth, speaking for the 
first time, “ where is this farm we’ve got to go to 
in the morning? ” 

“Mr. Holiday’s? Oh, a lovely place! Great big 


THE FIRST NIGHT IN CAMP 


35 


dairy farm that they’ve turned into this training cen- 
tre for us. Only about a mile off from here.” 

“ A mile ! ” I echoed blankly. “ How do we get 
there, please?” 

“ Get there? Well, how d’you think? ” retorted Vic 
gaily. “We walk, of course.” 

Walk ! I wondered how long it was since I’d walked 
a whole mile before today. Walk! A mile before 
the day’s work began? Oh! I was not the sort of 
girl who ought to dream of attempting this sort of 
life! All these others were overwhelmingly fit and 
healthy. You could see they were strong as horses, 
gay as larks! They must have been picked girls for 
the job. 

Well, ££ would buy me out! 

The girl in the sweater and breeches, who had 
been ironing out her smock, now put it on, all crisp. 
She also pinned a pink rose to the breast of it with a 
regimental brooch. 

“ Boys to meet, Peggy ! ” called the girl at the 
piano. Now, her voice was neither Cockney nor 
Welsh, but that of what was once called “ the govern- 
ing class.” What a queer mixture they were here ! 

Peggy looked demure and remarked: 

“ I’m astonished at you,” and strolled forth into 
the evening sunlight. 

“ Her young gentleman’s in the hospital here,” Vic 
informed us. “ There’s some real nice wounded boys 
there now. But for those, we girls might forget what 
a young man looked like.” 


36 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


Here Elizabeth spoke for the second time, looking, 
for the first time, a shade happier. She inquired 64 Ah, 
don’t they allow men here? ” 

Chorus of variously accented 44 No’s.” With cheer- 
ful resignation Vic added, 44 Young men’s very strictly 
rationed in this camp. Only our Mr. Price from the 
farm (o’ course he’s big enough to count for three!) 
and Mr. Rhys — the — Forestry, as they call him. 
Not another man is allowed to set his foot inside this 
place, so ” 

She broke off as if she caught sight of something. 

44 Whoever’s this ? ” she ej aculated. I, nearest the 
open window, followed her look. 

Two men, a little one and a tall one in khaki, were 
walking quickly up the path to the camp. 

A young man in khaki, wearing a Sam Browne! 
This sight was hardly a rarity to Elizabeth and 
me, fresh from London. So we were fairly taken 
aback at the reception of the phenomenon here, in 
this far-away rural camp of Land Girls. 

Excitedly Vic at the window reported. 

44 Here’s our Mr. Rhys, bringing in an officer ! ” 
Sensation ! 

44 An officer?” cried twenty voices at once. 

44 An officer?” 

44 Sure it is an officer? ” 

44 Some one from the hospital ” 

44 No officers there! Who can it be? ” 

44 Friend of yours, Sybil!” — this to the girl who 
had been playing the piano. 


THE FIRST NIGHT IN CAMP 37 

“ Somebody’s boy got a commission — don’t all 
rush ” 

But already they all had made a rush to the window, 
where Vic was lifting up a corner of the white case- 
ment curtain to peep. 

They crowded five deep behind her. 

“ It is an officer too ! ” announced the red-haired 
girl. 44 Captain ! ” 

44 I say, isn’t he tall ! ” 

66 Doesn’t he make carroty little Rhys look a 
shrimp? ” 

“ Dark, isn’t he? I do like dark men. A fair man 
always looks so quiet.” 

44 Huh ! 4 Looks ’ ! This one looks 4 quiet ’ enough, 

but I daresay ” 

44 Whatever’s he coming here for? ” 

44 He’s not coming in ; no such luck.” 

44 Sssssh!” hissed Vic, with the noise of an engine 
letting off steam. 44 He’s coming in now ! ” 

Instantly the crowd about the window scattered 
like flies before a switch. The crochet, the ironing, 
the book, the washing-up, all were resumed. It was 
indeed a model camp-room, full of silently-industri- 
ous young women, that met the eyes of the two visit- 
ors. 

First the small, pink-faced man in leggings and loud 
checks, with an orange moustache and a plume of 
amber hair that seemed to spring up off his forehead 
as he took off his hat, smiled, and nodded about to the 
sedate assembly of girls. 


38 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


“Good evening, young ladies. Good evening, Miss 
Easton. Brought you a caller,” said Mr. Rhys. 

Miss Easton, the forewoman, said “ Good evening, 
Mr. Rhys,” as demurely as if she had no curiosity 
at all about this caller. The tall man’s shape that 
was darkening the doorway behind Mr. Rhys gave a 
sudden abrupt movement forward. 

“ This,” said Mr. Rhys in his pleasant Welshy voice, 
“ is Captain Holiday.” 

Mr. Rhys, putting his hat and twisty stick down 
on a chair, added without further explanation, “ I 
told Captain Holiday I thought you wouldn’t mind let- 
ting him have a bit of a look round the place.” 

“ That’s all right, Mr. Rhys,” said the forewoman, 
with a little bow to acknowledge the salute of the 
strange officer, who had now come right into the room. 
* * * * * * * 

Here I would like to give my first impression of 
him, though every one knows how difficult it is to 
recall an impression taken when one is too dog-tired 
to notice clearly, or to care what any fresh person 
is like. 

I suppose I must have seen mechanically that this 
young man was of a light and active build, and that he 
had what people call a “ nice ” face, open, friendly, 
and sunburnt. 

I didn’t take in then the resolute set of the mouth 
under the closely-hogged russet moustache, or even 
see what sort of eyes he’d got. I know now that they 
are handsome, grey-blue eyes, set deep behind a thick 


THE FIRST NIGHT IN CAMP 


39 


fringe of brown. Sweet eyes, with that look in them 
that means, “ Do like me ! ” A look so often con- 
tradicted in a man’s face by the obdurate line and 
tilt of the jaw, which would try to proclaim, “ I don’t 
care a dash whether people like me or not.” 

***** * * 

All this was lost on me that first moment. I just 
noticed the gay ribbon on Captain Holiday’s well-worn 
khaki j acket, with two gold stripes at the cuff. 

Then I could not help noticing something rather odd 
about the young man — namely, the quick, searching 
glance that he sent all round the big room, taking in 
every Land Girl there. Was he looking for some 
one? But no. After passing every girl, that search- 
light glance found me — and it held me ! Yes ; it 
was at me, who’d never seen him in my life before, that 
he seemed to stare hardest of all! Why? 

Then I thought it must be my imagination that this 
stranger was staring at all. Possibly he was just 
shortsighted, and saw nothing but what was just un- 
der his nose. I turned what attention I had to the 
golden-and-white collie who trailed in behind him. 

Led by the instinct these creatures have for an ad- 
mirer, she sidled up to me. 

Her master was not too shortsighted, then, to 
see this! For he took two hasty strides right across 
the room, bringing him up to where I sat with Eliza- 
beth; he gave a little quick soft whistle, and instantly 
the collie sidled away again to her master’s riding- 
booted heel. 


40 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


I had just time to suppose that this Captain Holi- 
day — whoever he might be — was about to say 
something friendly and pleasant when he spoke. 

The voice that came out of that nice, friendly face 
was brusque and deep and carrying. The words that 
were set to that perfectly charming smile were un- 
expected enough. 

He demanded, still without taking his eyes from 
my face: 

“ You’re new, aren’t you? How long do you 
imagine that you’re going to stick this ? ” 

I looked up. For a moment I scarcely knew 
whether I had understood. Had he really asked that 
blunt, uncivil question? 

“Were you speaking to me?” I said. 

He nodded. 

“ To you? Yes, of course I was.” 

Indignantly surprised, I met his look again — 
steady, measuring, disconcerting. Then I felt a per- 
fect fool, in that stiff, new-smelling uniform for which 
I felt — in both senses — so unfitted. Then I blushed. 
After which, naturally, I felt I should hate him for ever. 

He waited; for some reason he was obviously de- 
termined that I should speak again. I don’t know 
what I should have answered; I think I just meant to 
reply, “ I don’t know,” but at that moment little 
Mr. Rhys came up to call his attention to the time. 

“ If you want to get on to the farm, Captain Holi- 
day ” 


THE FIRST NIGHT IN CAMP 


41 


“ Righto,” said this odd Captain Holiday. 

He gave a last half-smiling glance at me, and some- 
thing that might have been a little gesture of taking 
leave. 

Then he turned to say “ Good-bye ” to the fore- 
woman. 

A moment later I realized that he and Mr. Rhys 
had left the hut. 

For immediately the normal noise of the place burst 
out afresh, like a stream released from the dam. 
Down, with a bang, went the iron on the stand. Away 
into corners flew the book, the blouse-mending, the 
crochet, the letter-writing pad. Chattering and 
laughing, the Land Girls rushed five deep to the win- 
dow again. 

“ There they go ! ” 

“ Fancy a man about this place ! First thing you 
could call a man that’s been in here since we started ! ” 

“ What a shame,” from the deep-voiced Welsh girl. 
“ Why couldn’t you call our nice little Mr. Rhys 6 a 
man ’ ? ” 

“ Oh, him ! He’s in and out every day. Can’t call 
that 6 a man ’ about the place. More like a hus- 
band!” from another. “ Miss Easton, whoever was 
the officer? ” 

“ Couldn’t tell you. You heard Mr. Rhys say he 
was Captain Holiday, and that’s all I know.” 

“ 4 Holiday. ’ Wonder if that’s got anything to do 
with the farm?” 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


42 

Here, as the men passed by my window, I caught a 
few words, uttered by that carrying voice. The 
stranger was saying: “What was the name of that 
girl I spoke to ? ” 

What, I thought, irritably, had my name got to do 
with him? Again I felt the stab of anger with which 
I’d heard him ask me how long I thought I was going 
to stand “ this ” — the Land Army and roughing it in 
camp. Impertinence? Anyhow, I was at the end of 
my tether for tonight. Aching with fatigue, I got 
up and approached the laughing Vic. 

“ Please,” I asked her, “ could you show us where 
the bedrooms are? ” 

“Bedrooms?” echoed the big Land Girl, and then 
burst into a fresh peal of laughter. “Bedrooms? 
Hear that, girls? Celery-face wants to know where 
the bedrooms are ! ” General laughter. “ No luxur- 
ies of that sort here, dear. As you were! Here’s 
where we all sleep.” 

Blankly Elizabeth and I gazed about that bleak 
hall. 

“ On the floor,” added Vic cheerfully. 

“Floor!” I repeated, giving an appalled glance 
down at those hard scrubbed boards. 

But here our Cockney friend relented. 

“ Ah, it’s not come to that yet, even in the Land 
Army,” she said. “ Here, I’ll show you.” She put 
a large brown hand on the arm of each of us, led us 
to the further end of the hall and pulled aside a cur- 
tain. 


THE FIRST NIGHT IN CAMP 43 

Behind it an alcove was piled with rolled-up mat- 
tresses. 

We drag these out, d’you see,’’ explained Vic. 
“ Lay ’em in a line along the wall here. Here’s two 
for you — here’s your blankets. I’ll tuck you up 
in your little byes. Sleep like tops here, see if you 
don’t.” 

I was amazed to find how cosily I curled up, pres- 
ently on that mattress without sheets or pillows, set 
on the floor near that open window through which the 
air swept sweet with the breath of growing things. 
Vic tucked the khaki blankets round me with a gesture 
that I hadn’t seen so near me since I lost my mother. 

“ Sleep well,” she said comfortably. “ Dream of 
‘ him ’ ! ” 

And it was into the profoundest sleep that I’d 
known since Harry sailed that I presently sank. 

My last waking thoughts were a jumble of the train 
journey, the unfamiliar country, the laughing, rosy 
faces of the Land Girls. Then clearly there stood 
out, in front of all, the face of that strange young 
man who had walked into the camp, looking as if he 
were searching for somebody. That seaching, dis- 
concerting stare of his at me — why at me? — that 
brusque demand : “ How long d’you imagine you’ll 
stick this?” Why did he say that to me? 


CHAPTER V 


THE FIRST JOB 

“Something attempted, something done.’ — Longfellow. 

N EXT morning at two o’clock — or such the 
unearthly hour seemed to me — I was awak- 
ened by a resonant girlish voice. 

“ Tumble up ! It’s late ! I left you girls till the 
last minute. You were so dead asleep you never heard 
a sound. Up with you ! ” 

Deeply-drowsy, bewildered, but refreshed, I 
scrambled out of my blankets and blinked about. 

Where was 

Ah ! The hut ! 

Every mattress but Elizabeth’s and mine was rolled 
up and stowed away. Every “ Campite ” had disap- 
peared but big Yic and two who were on fatigue. 
Vic was hooking scarlet stripes to the sleeve of her 
clean smock. The others cleared breakfast away 
from the mess-table. 

“ You buck up and dress,” Vic advised us. “ The 
‘Timber-Girls and Miss Easton are all off to the 
woods already ” — this was the first I’d heard of so 
many of the girls here being in the Forestry Corps — 
“ and the other two farm-pupils have gone on. 

“ It’s no use you asking for any bathrooms, Celery- 
face,” she added good-humouredly. “ Here’s a basin. 
44 


THE FIRST JOB 45 

Young Sybil always takes a dip in the pool just out- 
side, but you’ve no time today.” 

I also had no wish, at that moment, to go and dip 
into any ice-cold, fresh-water pools, out of doors and 
in the chill grey dawn. Brrr ! 

“ No time for you to sit down for your breakfast 
either,” Vic pursued, as we huddled on our unfamiliar 
garments and struggled with the lacings of our leg- 
gings. “Lil! Just pour these girls out their tea, 
and butter ’em some bread — they must eat as they 
go along.” 

In the early sunshine on the road Elizabeth and I 
devoured the country bread and the real farm-butter. 
Our guide and mentor, Vic, strode along between us in 
the slouch hat, holland overall, breeches, and leggings 
that looked so natural and becoming on her, though 
my chum and I, glancing at each other, could not yet 
grow accustomed to our own appearances. 

My feet seemed to belong to somebody else, in these 
boots! They were so very different from the feet in 
the shoes that had pattered down steets and along 
corridors on my daily tube scramble in town! 

Harry had always “ noticed ” what shoes I wore, 
more than any other part of my get-up. But now 

“ ‘ Let us go hence, my shoes, he will not see,’ ” I 
parodied gloomily to myself as I tramped along that 
lane. 

Meanwhile Vic, cheerful as the morning, was point- 
ing out to us what she considered the objects of in- 
terest as we went along. 


46 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


“ See that big white place over there in the trees? 
That’s the hospital,” Vic told us, pointing. “ There’s 
two o’ the boys coming out now — see? This is the 
turning off to the town — at least, what they call a 
town. Mouldy! No pictures, nothing; still, why go 
to theatres when you can see life? 

“ You ought to have been here for the concert at 
the hospital last week. It was all right. They 
wanted to give it again at our hut; but Miss Easton 
and Mr. Rhys said 4 No fear.’ A shame, wasn’t it? 
Never mind ; they are going to have another, some time. 
See that hill to the right where that smoke’s going 
up? That’s where our girls work at the trees. And 
those corrugated iron roofs you can just see over there 

— that’s the camp for the German prisoners, and ” 

Vic broke off to ask if she were running us off our 
legs. Certainly she was a quicker walker than either 
of us. But I enjoyed the tramp through this heavenly 
air as much as I ever could enjoy anything again, I 
thought, in this Harry-less world. 

So far, I thought “ going on the land ” was not so 
bad after all. Eating delicious bread and butter out- 
of-doors on a glorious morning at an hour when, in 
London, I should still have been a-bed! Not at all 
bad. It might even do a little to take my thoughts 
off the wound that could not help aching for ever. 

And besides this, I was conscious that in the whole 
air of the place there was something as distinctive, as 
familiar as in the taste of the farmhouse bread and 


THE FIRST JOB 


47 


butter. It was a something that I had not savoured 
since I was a growing girl. . . . 

Other country landscapes that I had since seen 
had always made me feel the lack of this “ some- 
thing.” . . . 

That these others were often, in a different way, as 
beautiful, I did admit. I appreciated their dignity, the 
prosperity of their wide, flat lands. They had so much 
that was to be admired, but not 

Ah ! Not the “ flavour ” of Wales ! 

That wild charm one can no more describe than one 
could photograph the skylark’s song. But, with that 
in one’s blood* other charms leave one temperate. 
Once tasted, never to be forgotten. » • • I found 
myself sniffing it up now as if it were some rich and 
definite perfume, instead of some atmosphere made up 
of a thousand elusive things . . . the dreams of 
youth included ! 

And I was glad — that is, as glad as I could allow 
myself to feel in the circumstances — that, to take up 
my new venture, Fate had sent me back to the Land of 
my Fathers. 

“ There ! ” exclaimed Vic presently. “ There’s the 
farm ! ” 

She pointed to a square building of apricot red, 
backed by trees and a gently-sloping green hill. It 
had a flat slate roof, and its many windows glittered 
in the sun. 

With interested curiosity I gazed upon it as we 


48 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


came nearer — the farm where my chum and I were 
to receive our training for this new life which we’d 
chosen for ourselves — on a toss-up ! That farm — 
stacked with such memories for me now ! On that first 
morning I wondered what it would mean for me. 

“ Here’s our way, round by the back,” Yic piloted 
us. Up a short lane we went, through a big, red 
wooden gate, and into the farmyard. It was the first 
farmyard I’d been into since Dad gave up that farm 
of his that had swallowed, sovereign by sovereign, all 
his capital. This other place looked — ah, how much 
larger and more prosperous ! 

The big, oblong yard was bordered by buildings 
that gave the place the air of a homely monastery 
with cloisters. 

By a shed door to the left a labourer in shirt-sleeves 
and wearing a soldier’s cap was holding a horse, and 
talking to a very big man in tweeds. As this man 
turned his face I saw it was the kindest-looking one 
that I had ever seen. 

Yic led us up to him. 

“ Here’s our two new pupils, Mr. Price,” she in- 
troduced us. “ This little one’s Elizabeth Weare. 
This other young lady with the white face is Joan 
Matthews.” 

A very kindly smile was sent down upon us from 
the top reaches of that farmer’s six-foot-four. He 
was indeed a gentle giant. 

“ You will soon get rosy cheeks here,” he assured 
me. “ Yes, yes. Vic, now, wasn’t so much to look 


THE FIRST JOB 


49 


at when she came here first, a twelvemonth ago. 
Didn’t like it at first ! ” This with a twinkle. 
“ Couldn’t get rid of her afterwards. Shows she likes 
it here now, doesn’t it, for her to want to stay on as 
instructor? ” 

“ Instructor ! ” murmured Elizabeth and I together. 
For the first time we realized this big, laughing Cock- 
ney-voiced Campite was also an official. 

The farmer turned away with a friendly nod to us ; 
and to Vic he added: 

“ You will put them on to their jobs of work, then, 
won’t you — same as I told you yesterday? ” 

“ Right you are, Mr. Price,” returned Vic briskly. 
“ Now, then, dear,” to Elizabeth, “ you’d better come 
along with me. Picking up stones for you. I’ll 
show you the field that’s got to be cleared.” 

I saw an indescribable mingling of expressions cross 
Elizabeth’s small face under that brand-new Land 
Army hat. Pick up stones ! The thing any child at 
the seaside can do ! Was it for this that she had given 
up her post as an efficient clerk and had joined the 
Land Army? Such, I know, was her thought. But 
she only said “ Right! ” and stood by for our instruc- 
tor’s orders. 

Vic turned to me. 

“ Now you,” she went on, with a gesture towards the 
shed near which that labourer had been standing. 
“ Here’s your little job.” 

Now, I appeal to all you girls who joined up as I 
did, ignorant and 66 townified,” to work on the Land ! 


50 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


Had you any clear idea of what you thought would 
be the first task to which you would be set? 

I hadn’t. 

But Elizabeth mischievously declares that I had al- 
ready pictured my first job thus: 

Scene, a shining, fragrant dairy, with roses fram- 
ing the open lattice. Myself, in a lilac sun-bonnet, 
looking like a lady land-worker out of some revue, and 
wielding a snowy, carved wooden implement with which 
I printed a clover-blossom design off on to innumerable 
pats of golden butter. 

If this was “ The Ideal,” how different was “ The 
Real ” to which Vic pointed now ! 

My “ little job ” ! 

I had smelt it the moment that I’d entered the farm- 
yard. As a child I’d seen Dad’s roughest farm-lad 
engaged upon a similar “ little job,” and I’d been 
sorry for him — it had seemed not only such hard 
work, but so disgusting! 

It involved spade work and a pitchfork, a wheel- 
barrow and the midden in the centre of the yard, on 
which a speckled hen and her brood were peering and 
running about. It also involved a dive into dark and 
very evil-smelling recesses, with noisome straw under- 
foot and festoons of grey cobwebs overhead. Never 
had I thought I should set foot — or nose — in such a 
place. 

But it was in tones of the cheeriest matter-of-course 
that Vic concluded : 

" Yes, you start cleaning out that cow-house.” 


THE FIRST JOB 


51 


, That cow-house ! Start cleaning it out ! I 1 

Vic gave me my tools, bore off Elizabeth, and left 
me to it. 

There I stood in the farmyard — I, the would-be 
farm-worker, to whom “ work ” had always meant sit- 
ting indoors and checking papers and clicking a type- 
writer ! 

Well, I must make a beginning. 

I made the beginning that beginners do make — 
namely, I went at it like a bull at a gate. 

With my hands that had not held any tool heavier 
than a fountain-pen, I grasped, I clutched the spade- 
handle, that felt so huge and so unwieldy. Violently 
I drove that spade into that brown and malodorous 
mass at my feet. Ugh! Violently I tried to raise the 
heavy spadeful of that horror. It was too heavy to 
lift. I struggled. 

At the third or fourth effort I heaved the load up. 
Wildly I cast the foul burden into the wheelbarrow. 
I missed it by half, though; half that spadeful fell 
upon my boots and upon my immaculate gaiters. 
How revolting. I stamped myself free, shuddering. 

Savagely I stooped to my loathsome task. I dug, 
heaved, threw. In ten minutes I was hot, dripping, 
exhausted. My arms shook and twitched with over- 
oxertion. 

And with a sudden more violent lunge than any of 
the others, I thrust my spade into the half-heaped 
barrow and left it. 

I’d made up my mind. I wasn’t going to stick this. 


52 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


I’d buy myself out. Going back to London offices 
and tightly-shut windows would be anyhow better than 
this. 

I’d go! Yes! Now! 

Hurriedly I began pulling down the sleeves of the 
smock that I’d rolled up above my elbows. I’d got 
one sleeve down, when the shed-door was suddenly 
darkened. A man’s shape shut out the glimpse of 
farmyard. A man’s eyes were upon me with an 
amused and curious stare. 

I recognized him. 

Yes! He was that young officer who had taken it 
upon himself, last night at the hut, to ask me how 
long I thought I should stick this. 

Of course, he would — he would choose tills moment 
to come upon me again! 

Angry was not the word for my feelings towards 
the young man! 

This was unfair. But it didn’t affect him. He 
looked at me, and at the one sleeve that I had rolled 
down again. He gave the honeyed smile that every 
Land Girl at the camp had noticed for its sweetness. 
And then, in the brusque voice that was such a con- 
trast to the smile, he said — without even a “ good 
morning ” : 

“ Any one could see that you had never set foot on 
a farm before.” 

“ How d’you know I haven’t? As it happens I 
have ! ” I retorted crossly, and again I caught up 
the spade that I’d flung into the barrow. 


THE FIRST JOB 


53 


66 Anyhow, you don’t know how to handle those 
things,” he said, moving forward. “ That’s not the 
way to hold a spade.” 

Without more ado he took the spade out of my 
hands, holding it lightly. He drove it without vio- 
lence into the foul mess that heaped the floor, taking 
up about half the quantity that I had done. 

66 You’ll find,” he remarked, “ that if you don’t over- 
load the spade it will balance itself. Same with the 
pitchfork. Let the work do itself. Look.” 

He let that spade swing back, and the weight on 
it swung forward to the barrow with almost no ex- 
ertion at all. 

“ Let weight weigh on your side,” he said, driving 
in the spade. “ Let force force. Let gravity grav. 
You see what I mean.” 

He gave me a little nod as I watched. 

“ You’ll find,” he said again, “ that you can’t fight 
nature. You can make her work for you, though.” 

Turning to the wheelbarrow, he picked up the 
handles of it and trundled it out into the sunny farm- 
yard. Not quite knowing what he would be at, I fol- 
lowed the light figure in khaki towards that mound 
of unspeakableness, where the grey hen clucked to 
her young. A board slanted up the side of it. 
The young man turned to speak to me as he trun- 
dled. 

“ The same with the barrow,” Captain Holiday went 
on. 66 You don’t let it stand still at the foot of that 
plank and then heave it up. You heave it along the 


54 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


level here, where it’s easiest. Then it’ll go halfway 
up by itself. Like this.” 

Easily he ran the barrow halfway up the plank. 
Then, when I thought he was going to tip it over, 
he let it run down again, and wheeled it back with 
its noisome load to the cowshed. 

“ D’ye see? ” 

“Yes. But you might have emptied it for me,” I 
suggested, “ while you’d got it there.” 

“ Oh, no,” he said coolly, “ that’s not the idea.” 
Then, quickly: “Won’t you roll that sleeve of yours 
up again? ” 

This with a twinkle* 

I bit my lip. 

Of course he had caught me out in the very act of 
“ chucking it.” This made me all the more furious 
because I couldn’t show it. Who was this Captain 
Holiday who permeated this district, asking leading 
questions of land-workers, and, without encourage- 
ment, showing them how and how not to do their work? 
Surely it was hardly any business of his, after all? 

In what I meant to be a crushing tone, I asked 
him: 

“ Do you wheel many barrows in the Army? ” 

He replied cheerfully, and in a disarmingly boyish 
manner : 

“ It’s just the same principle if you’re swinging a 
bayonet. They’re both weights. Now, you try 
again.” 


THE FIRST JOB 


55 


And I actually found myself rolling up my sleeves 
again and — obeying orders ! 

Yes ! I did as I was told by this incredible young 
man, as I called him inwardly at the time. 

I see now what he meant. Any other man would 
have gone on doing my work while I leaned against 
the edge of the stall. He made me do it myself, and 
at the exact moment when I’d decided I’d had enough 
of it ? 

“ Take a rest now,” broke in this Captain Holi- 
day after he’d watched me critically for some minutes. 
“ Resting is just as important as thrusting.” 

He drew up a long wooden crate near the cow- 
house door. 

“ Sit down,” he ordered. 

I did, still wondering half-exasperatedly who this 
tall young captain was. 

Did he think that just because I was on the land 
I was to be spoken to by any stranger who drifted 
along? If so — well! 

I was just wondering how I had better show him 
very plainly that he’d made a big mistake, when again 
I was disarmed by the sight of that charming smile. 
No man with a smile like that could make that kind of 
mistake. But again the smile was accompanied by 
the bluntest remark. 

“You were jacking up just now, weren’t you? 
Thinking you’d chuck the whole show ? ” 

This nettled me exceedingly. 


56 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


“No! I was doing nothing of the kind,” I re- 
plied hotly. 

“ You know quite well that you were,” he retorted 
quickly. “ But you will always contradict me, and I 
shall never admit what you say. That’s understood.” 

Evidently he meant that our acquaintance was to 
go on, whatever I intended. 

He crossed his legs and pulled a loose nail out of 
the side of the crate on which we sat. I hadn’t asked 
him to sit down by me. That, too, he’d taken as a 
matter of course. 

Was this young soldier some relation of Mr. Price? 
Had he anything to do with this farm? Or did he 
just appoint himself instructor to any Land Girl he 
happened to meet? 

Hoping to find out what his position was, I asked 
vaguely, but more politely than I had spoken be- 
fore: 

“Are you stationed here?” 

“ Here in this cowshed? ” Captain Holiday asked 
blandly. 

At this I told him, quite shortly, not to be silly. 

Whereupon he laughed. 

“ Well, then, if you mean for a mile or two round 
here ” — he gave a little circular jerk of his head — “ I 
suppose I am. My house is here. You haven’t seen 
my house yet, but you’d pass it coming from the 
camp. It’s that white place in the trees beyond the 
hill.” 

“ But — that’s the hospital. Then you’re wounded,” 


THE FIRST JOB 


57 


< — I glanced at his gold stripes — “ or still sick?” 

“ That doesn’t follow. What I mean is that it’s 
my house.” 

“ Then you turned it into a hospital?” 

“ No,” replied this puzzling young man quietly. 
Then added, as if he were speaking to one of his own 
soldiers : “ Come along. Time’s up ! Take a turn 
with the spade again. And see if you can make the 
wheelbarrow go up easily next journey.” 

As I took up the spade again he strolled out of the 
shed. I thought he was not even going to have the 
manners to bid me good morning. But he turned his 
face, and said laughingly over his shoulder: 

“ Au revoir — unless you mean to jack up before I 
see you again ? ” 

Without waiting for a reply, he crossed the yard 
towards the farmhouse, 

I went on with my so-far-from-romantic task, a little 
surprised to find that there did seem to be something 
in what this Captain Holiday had said about handling 
spades and wheeling barrows. His was the better 
way, after all. I tried to follow it. I still found the 
unusual exercise was labour; but it was not altogether 
the struggle that it had been at my first ignorant and 
violent efforts. 

I worked, getting more flushed and moist and dis- 
hevelled as the cleared space on the slate floor grew — 
very gradually — larger. 

There — I’d managed to tip the barrow over quite 
neatly that time. I wished I could turn through that 


58 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


cow-house the canal of which I saw the silver blink 
between meadows beyond the stack-roofs. That 
would be “making Nature work for one” with a 
vengeance ! 

Now! This time the spade seemed ever so much 
lighter, and yet I’d managed to get quite a good load 
on to it. 

Presently I was startled to hear a bell clanging 
noisily across the yard. A woman’s voice called to 
some one “ Dinner ! n 


CHAPTER VI 


THE FARMHOUSE MEAL 

“ Thank God and the Land Army for my good dinner ; Amen. ,r 

— Grace (revised). 

D INNER! At the word there invaded me an 
extraordinary feeling, to which I’d been a 
stranger for months in town. What was it? 
— hunger, ravenous and primitive — fervently I hoped 
that this summons meant dinner for everybody ! 

I glanced at my filthy forearms and hands. Re- 
membering my “ blunder ” about the bedrooms in camp, 
I did not look for anybody to tell me where the bath- 
room was. 

I made for the pump in the yard. And then, as 
I dried my arms and face as well as I could on a 
comparatively clean piece of my smock, I heard a 
good-natured Cockney voice behind me say: 

“ Oh, look at Celery Face sluicing herself in a young 
cataract ! ” 

Turning, I found big Vic coming up with Eliza- 
beth. My chum’s small face was redder than I had 
ever seen it. It wore an <c in-for-a-penny-in-for-a- 
pound ” expression, and her uniform (though not 
filthy like mine) was no longer the immaculate fancy 
dress that it had seemed on th^ road to work. 

Vic grinned. 


59 


60 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


44 This little ’un is going to shape fine, only for 
breaking her back nearly,” she told me. 44 How’ve 
you been getting on, young Joan? Let’s have a 
look at your shed. Yes, that’s the style. This ’ere 
job will be part of your cowman’s test, you know. 
Cleaning out shed, maximum 10 marks. Seventy-five 
per cent, marks you’ve got to get in the tests before 
you pass out of here and get a swanky post some- 
where, and be a credit to your instructress, don’t you 
forget it ! ” 

I couldn’t help laughing as we followed her up to 
the farmhouse. 

44 Instructress, indeed ! ” I exclaimed. 44 I was ex- 
pecting some 4 instruction,’ and you never came! You 
never even showed me how to hold the spade.” 

Vic flashed upon me her most teasing grin. 

44 I did come,” she said with a nod. 64 Only you 
weren’t wanting any 4 instruction,’ I noticed, from lit- 
tle Me. Went away again, I did — hooked it. You 
were all right. Never even saw me. You and your 
landowner ! ” 

Before I could ask what Vic meant by 44 my land- 
owner ” we were all in the big front kitchen, with 
its dresser, its tridarn (or three-decker oaken chest), 
its grandfather clock, and its long table set for seven. 

This was the first time Elizabeth or I had sat 
down to dinner in a kitchen. Much we should have 
cared had it been in the scullery, the barn, or the hen- 
house! There is no appetite like that which comes 
from physical toil! 


THE FARMHOUSE MEAL 


61 


Glorious greed was a delicious sauce — if any sauce 
had been needed — to the plentiful and savoury farm- 
house meal that was provided for us of boiled bacon, 
potatoes, greens, butter, bread, buttermilk, fruit tart, 
and cheese. 

At the risk of writing myself down a glutton — or 
of reading like an advertisement for somebody’s 
cocoa — I must dwell on the taste of that loaf, that 
butter, those other wholesome and delicious things 
with their suggestion of building healthy bodies and 
reddening rosy cheeks — the food with which England 
should be fed. 

“ Everything home-grown ! ” we were smilingly told 
by Mrs. Price, the farmer’s wife, who took one end 
of the table, while her husband carved at the other. 
Their own dining-room in the front of the house was 
exquisite with old oak and the silver pots of two gen- 
erations of agricultural prize-winners ; but they 
elected to share their Land Girls’ kitchen dinner be- 
cause it seemed more hospitable and homely. 

“ There’s nothing here that hasn’t come off the 
farm,” Mrs. Price added. “ Those black currants 
in the tart are my last year’s bottling, of course. But 
they were straight out of the garden here. I expect 
you find it dreadfully countrified fare after London — 
those of you that come from there.” 

* # * * * # * 

Elizabeth and I here spared a moment from re- 
velling in our second helpings of those home-grown 
vegetables, so efficiently cooked, to look up and laugh. 


62 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


What we were both thinking of was our last, faiewell, 
midday meal in town. 

It had consisted of: 

(1) Hors d’ceuvre, highly vinegary and suspect — 
tasting of nothing on earth. 

(2) A morsel of sole that had distinctly not come 
“ straight ” out of the sea, and tasting of the fact. 

(3) Escaloppes de veau with tomato sauce. I 
don’t know what they tasted of, though they cost us 
a meat-ticket ; they smelt, too, forbiddingly of the sub- 
stitute fat in which they’d been fried. 

(4) A small greyish roll, tasting of sawdust. 

(5) One half peach, tasting of tin. 

(6) Black coffee, tasting of dish-cloth, with a viru- 
lently green liqueur that we hoped might drown the 
tastes of the other courses, and a cheap cigarette. 

England’s lunch! 

******* 

Certainly life was a succession of contrasts. From 
the dark fugginess of that crowded little Italian res- 
taurant — which I’d loved because Harry “ discov- 
ered ” it — to this spotless Welsh kitchen where the 
kindly farm people “ mothered ” the five girls in farm- 
kit — Vic, Elizabeth, myself and the other two more 
advanced pupils. One of these was “ Sybil,” who had 
played the piano at the Hut last night, and who took 
her dip in the pool before going to work; the other 
was a bright-looking girl they called “ Curley,” though 
her hair was the straightest imaginable. 


THE FARMHOUSE MEAL 63 

That gentle giant, Mr. Price, had a word for each 
as he carved. 

“ I like to know something about all you young 
ladies who’ve come down here to work,” he said to 
me. “ A lot we’ve had down here since the start. 
Twenty, I think, coming and going ; splendid girls — 
good little workers, all. And some were one thing 
and some another. From South Wales the two last 
were who were here; fathers in the collieries. Then 
there’s Curley,” he nodded at her, “ all her people 
in works, Birmingham. And Sybil here,” with an- 
other nod, “ from Buckinghamshire, never been away 
from home before without a maid, she told my wife. 
Father a general. May I ask if your father was in 
the Army too, perhaps ? ” 

“No; my father wasn’t in anything particular,” I 
said. “ He used to do a little bit of farming him- 
self.” 

A gleam of interest lighted up the giant’s blue 
eyes. 

“Dear me! Farmed himself, did he? How big a 
farm, missy?” he asked. 

“Oh, not big at all. Nor at all successful!” I 
told him ruefully. “I’m afraid he just lost money 
over it about seven years ago.” 

More interest from this other, prosperous-looking 
farmer. 

“ Farming,” he told me gravely, “ was no life for 
a man in this country until just lately. An existence, 


64 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


that was all. All the food we ought to have grown 
came in from over the sea. Agriculture, before the 
war, was simply hand to mouth, hand to mouth.” He 
looked at his wife and added : “ If it hadn’t been for 
pedigree poultry and shire horses the farmers would 
have starved.” 

His wife nodded across the table; she was the sort 
of small, dainty little woman that you would expect 
that great-framed man to choose; her thick hair was 
prematurely grey, and her well-cut and tiny features, 
though composed, seemed as if they had looked on 
struggles in her time. 

Then came something that, though it was only talk 
at a farmhouse table, was significant. It made me 
think. This new problem of my life on the land was 
full of old problems to others. Across that liberally- 
spread board that farmer’s wife launched an astonish- 
ing remark. 

“ We nearly starved,” she said, “ when we were 
children in my father’s time. One New Year he made 
up his accounts and he was down a thousand pounds. 
The next year again he was down a thousand. And 
the third year again he had lost another thousand. 
That January, I remember, he did not speak for a 
week.” 

Her soft voice shook. The faces of the Land Girls 
were all turned towards her, listening, surprised. 

“ Then,” continued Mrs. Price, “ he came into our 
nursery and said, ‘ Children, I’m broke. The dear old 
home will have to go.’ ” 


THE FARMHOUSE MEAL 


65 


Here the Land Girl Sybil put in gently: 

“ But you told me your brother had that farm now. 
So you didn’t have to leave, Mrs. Price? ” 

“No! Because of my father fighting for it. He 
borrowed money at very high interest and went in for 
shire horses. In ten years he was just feeling his 
feet again. It was twenty years before he paid off 
everything. That was a struggle. Those were the 
hard times for farmers. It makes me feel bitter now, 
girls, when they say farmers are 6 grasping,’ and 
4 make money hand over fist,’ just because the tide has 
turned at last, and farming isn’t the terribly losing 
game it was ! ” 

“ Well, it’ll never be so again, I hope,” her husband 
assured her. Then he beamed about the table and 
added: “Not with all these young ladies here turning 
out to help like this! And that one,” nodding at me, 
“ a farmer’s daughter herself ! Where is your father 
living now, then? ” 

I told him the name of the village on the border- 
line between England and Wales. 

“ Not so far from here, then. Fifty miles off, per- 
haps. They’ll be able to come down and see how you 
are getting on.” 

But here Vic broke in mischievously over her bread 
and cheese. 

“ Don’t you worry, Mr. Price. She isn’t going 
to bust herself with any homesickness. She don’t 
want any more people. She’s got off with a young 
man of her own down here already.” 


66 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


Here Elizabeth must needs turn her head sharply, to 
glance at me with an inquiry full of rebuke; uttering it 
aloud as well. 44 What young man? ” 

I took no notice of her. I looked at the others ; the 
others who did not think (as she did) that I was far too 
fond of the whole Repulsive Sex. 

44 There was no young man — I mean, not in that 
sort of way at all — Vic’s talking nonsense to tease 
me!” I assured the party, definitely. 

44 It was simply that Captain Holiday — whoever he 
is, he seems to think he can go anywhere and do any- 
thing — came into the shed where I was working and 
gave me a few tips about my work.” 

44 Ah, Captain Holiday. Yes. It was him you 
were asking about, Vic,” said Mr. Price, his blue eyes 
interested again. 44 Yes, he’s our landlord here now 
that poor old Mr. Holiday’s gone. Most of the prop- 
erty about belongs to him. The hospital, and your 
camp, and this farm, and all. A great interest he 
takes in all of it. All over it he was this morning. So 
he went and showed this young lady how to set about 
her job? Very obliging of him.” 

Vic again retorted teasingly. 

44 Oh, I don’t know so much ! I haven’t noticed 
that young men are so nice and 4 obliging ’ over help- 
ing girls with their jobs without they’re interested in 
the girls themselves ! ” 

I really failed to see why every one of the other girls 
should seem to take such a vivid ' interest in this argu- 


THE FARMHOUSE MEAL 67 

ment — particularly Elizabeth, who ought to have 
known better! 

Quite nettled, I put in quickly: 

44 Personally I shouldn’t call this Captain Holiday a 
very 4 obliging 5 young man.” I was thinking of the 
way in which he’d trundled that wheelbarrow back 
with its noisome load, instead of emptying it for me, 
and I concluded, 44 Rather annoying, I should call 
him.” 

Then I was sorry I’d said that. Mr. Price, who 
had unfolded his long legs from under the table and 
was rising to his feet at the end of the meal, looked 
grave and gave me a quick glance. 

“Indeed?” he said seriously. 44 1 am sorry to 
hear it. I can’t have anything like that, landlord 
or no landlord. If Captain Holiday was annoying 
one of my workers, I shall have to tell him ” 

44 Oh, please don’t,” I put in hastily. 44 1 didn’t 
mean that kind of 4 annoying 9 at all. I only meant 
I was rather annoyed that any one should see I 
was such a raw beginner at my job. That was 
all.” 

In common fairness to the young man I felt I had 
to speak up for him to that extent. On returning to 
my cow-house I forgot all about him, forgot even that 
it was he who’d saved me from half the difficulty of 
my task. It was not all drudgery, when one found out 
the best and quickest way of doing what was so new 
to me — manual work. 

Thankful enough was I, though, to knock off! 


68 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


But on the way home Elizabeth brought up Captain 
Holiday again. 

“Joan,” she began, “what do you think of that 
young man? ” 


CHAPTER VII 


AFTER-EFFECTS 

Rosalind: “Oh, Jupiter, how weary are my spirits!” 

Celia: “ I care not for my spirits, if my legs were not so weary.” 

— Shakespeare. 


S EVERELY I looked at my chum. 

She and I were walking down the road between 
the flowering hedges back to camp behind Vic, 
Sybil, and Curley. 

Now the other two pupils — who had wound up 
their day’s work by milking, which we had been sent 
to watch — had knocked off obviously as fresh as 
paint. Elizabeth, too, made no complaint of feeling 
tired after her day’s stone-picking. She strode along 
manfully, and I thought that the rather wooden way 
she moved was just because of the clumsy land-boots. 

So that I vowed to myself that I’d never let her 
know what I’d begun to feel, after the midday rest, 
and in every muscle, namely, the relentless strain of 
unusual physical exertion. 

Ah! How it had got me! 

The first game of tennis, the first bicycle ride, the 
first row, the first long tramp of a summer holiday — 
everybody knows the ache that comes after these. 
Multiply that ache by fifty, and you’ll have some 
idea of what happens after the first day’s land-work. 
69 


70 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


Personally I felt it would be all I could do to drag 
my stiffening limbs back to the hut! 

I also felt that for Elizabeth to cross-question me 
at this moment was adding insult to aches. After 
staring at dinner, too ! 

“ Elizabeth, you are a little owl,” I informed her. 
“ I know what you imagine. Can’t any sort of young 
man say a word to me without it’s starting some idea 
of a love-affair? ” 

Elizabeth, set-faced, said coolly, “ Apparently 
not.” 

I straightened my back indignantly. Then caught 
my breath because it hurt me so. Hoping she hadn’t 
noticed this, I demanded, “ What d’you mean by 
that? ” 

“ Wherever you go, Joan, young men always seem 
to break out,” Elizabeth replied rebukefully. 

She spoke the words “ young men ” just as Farmer 
Price might have mentioned caterpillars in his stand- 
ing crops. 

“ You forget that I came down here just because 
I’d had enough of them ! ” I said wearily. 

Elizabeth, scowling: 

« We’ve only just finished with the eternal Harry. 
For a year he monopolized you; nobody else existed! 
Then he went, leaving you without an ounce of go or 
fun in you — anyhow, he did go ; at last. But the very 
day he’d gone you got a proposal from that other Man- 
thing; what was his name? ” 

“ D’you mean Richard Wynn? ” 


AFTER-EFFECTS 71 

“ Yes. There was that. Well, you lost his letter. 
So he was off ” 

“ Shouldn’t have taken him, anyhow,” I protested. 

“ You said you would.” 

“ People will say anything,” I defended myself, 
“ after a day like I’d just had in that office.” 

“ I sometimes think you’d be quite silly enough to 
accept him yet,” declared my candid friend as we 
tramped past the park trees that gave a glimpse of 
the white hospital. “ But then we come down here. 
And the very first evening — what happens ? A third 
young man crops up ! ” 

“ He didn’t crop up to see me.” 

“ Curious that you should be the only girl in the 
camp that he picked out to speak to,” sniffed Eliza- 
beth. “ And that the next morning he should make 
a bee line for that cow-house of yours, and ” 

Here she broke off with an alarmingly sudden little 
screech of “ Ow ! ” 

I stopped. 

“ What is the matter ! ” 

“ Nothing,” retorted Elizabeth, with tears in her 
eyes. 

“ My dear old girl, what is it? ” I insisted 
anxiously. 

Then she laughed. She blurted out quickly: 

“ It’s only that — the more I move the more it hurts 
me! Oh, Joan, I’m sore! That’s why I snapped at 
you so crossly. They say 6 Cross as a bear with a 
sore paw ’ — but — but I’m sore everywhere ! ” 


72 — A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 

“ Oh ! So am I!” I groaned, laughing with the 
relief of the confession. “ I feel as if I’d got fifty new 
bones.” 

“ So do I ! ” 

“ All hurting me like mad ! ” 

“ So are mine l ” declared Elizabeth, hobbling. 
“ Well, I suppose we’ll get used to it. They say this 
wears off. Let’s hope for the best — and for good- 
ness’ sake don’t let us squabble.” 

“ I never want to ! ” 

“ Righto. And tell me,” continued my chum, “ what 
you really do think of that young man Captain Holi- 
day? ” 

I couldn’t help laughing. If Elizabeth wants to 
get at anything, it comes off in the long run. So, as 
we hobbled stiffly down the road together, I told her 
as much as I did “ think ” on the score of this new 
acquaintance. I described the cow-house scene. 

“ Such a truly idyllic setting,” I chaffed her, “ for 
any sort of a tete-a-tete! ” 

I repeated the young man’s remarks about the way 
to “ make work do itself, and to let gravity grav.” 
I told her how he’d made me roll down my sleeves 
again, and had ordered me about generally. 

“ I think he’s rather a domineerer. But he is a 
sahib, of course. He’s rather original, too. And al- 
most the rudest person I’ve met,” I said critically. 
66 He is the rudest, next to you.” 

Elizabeth said blandly: 

“ Yes, and yet you’ve always liked me most aw- 


AFTER-EFFECTS 73 

fully. I suppose you’ll soon find out how much you 
like him.” 

I began to say, “We shall probably never see the 
man again,” but remembered that he was the owner of 
this land on which we toiled, and that it would sound 
silly. So I merely said: 

“ I don’t dislike him at all.” 

Elizabeth shook her bobbed hair against her cheeks. 
Grimly, fatalistically, she added: • 

“ I know you’re going to like him horribly.” 

“ I know your poor little sore bones have affected 
your brain 1” I told her. “Haven’t I just had one 
‘ doing’ over liking some one too horribly? Yet, in 
the middle of that, you say ” 

“ It isn’t the middle,” Elizabeth returned very 
quickly, “ it is coming to the end.” 

“What!” 

“ It is the beginning of the end. You won’t go 
on thinking of Harry to the end of your days.” 

“ Much you know about it, child ! ” I said, and as 
I spoke the wide sun-lighted green lands faded from 
before me, and I saw Harry’s polished black head 
above the pink lights of a restaurant table — Harry’s 
handsome, straying eyes. “ The thought never leaves 
me, Elizabeth.” 

“ Hasn’t it left you once today? ” 

Here — well, it was the greatest surprise to me, 
but I did have to straighten my mouth out of a smile. 
Today? The thought of Harry had certainly been 
somewhat overlaid by — cow-house. But I said : 


74 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


“ It’s there always, worse luck, at the back of my 
mind.” 

“ Making more room in front,” said my impish 
chum. “ You’re better about him already.” 

Patiently I sighed. 

“ You’re better,” insisted Elizabeth, “ even this lit- 
tle time away in this weird place with this extraordi- 
nary job lot of people has done you good. You 
will begin to forget soon.” 

Pityingly I smiled at her. 

“ Harry,” I told her, “ is not the kind of man who 
gets forgotten. I wish he were. He is one of those 
charmers who leave their mark on a woman’s life. 
He’d such wonderful ways. He ” 

“ Don’t shove me into the wall,” begged Elizabeth. 
“ I feel knocked about enough as it is.” 

“ Sorry. I wish I could make you realize, though, 
about Harry. He once took me to a play where the 
woman says : * There are two kinds of love affairs. 
There are affairs — and there are just loves ’ Unfor- 
tunately this is one of those.” 

“ Oh, yes,” said Elizabeth drily. 

“ If you’d ever had one of either,” said I, nettled, 
“ you’d know the difference.” 

“ So that there will always be one thing that I shall 
never know,” concluded the Man-hater, limping along. 

I glanced at the small dog-tired but resolute figure 
in the smock that the evening sunlight was gilding from 
holland to cloth of gold. 

“Wait!” I threatened her again. “Wait until 


AFTER-EFFECTS 75 

some great huge ultra-masculine man comes along and 
begins to bully you in a voice like a typhoon! ” 

“ Like a what? ” 

“ Like a gale ! Like a Bull of Basan ! That sort of 
huge brute who’d terrify the life out of you, Elizabeth 
my child, and order you about like Petruchio and 
Katherine in The Taming of the Shrew ! That’s what’ll 
happen! I shall simply love to watch you being abso- 
lutely subjugated ” — 

“ Book early, to avoid disappointment,” mocked my 
chum. 

“ — subjugated by a gigantic, navvy sort of person 
with muscles as big as vegetable-marrows hobbling all 
over his arms and shoulders ! ” 

“ It sounds too fascinating, doesn’t it?” jeered the 
girl whose head reached up to my ear. “ I love your 
prognostications, Joan, especially after a hard day’s 
work! It puts you in train! You really think a 
bully-ragging Prize-fighter-type will be my Fate ! ” 

“ Unless ” Here I had another idea. “ Unless 

you ever meet the one and only man in this world that 
you’ve ever written letters to. What about that old 
Colonel of yours ? ” I laughed. 

A word of explanation here. 

“ The Old Colonel ” had been for a year a standing 
joke in our London menage. He was the officer whose 
furnished flat we had taken over by the week in Golder’s 
Green — and which we’d now left for such very differ- 
ent quarters. His flat was full of neat contrivances, 
such as the bath-mat, hand-made out of rounds of bot- 


?6 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


tie corks; full, too, of books on “Tactics,” all an- 
notated in a neat, old-maidish hand. 

We had amused ourselves by making a mental pic- 
ture of their owner — a methodical, fussy, white- 
moustached “ old ” soldier. This had seemed all of a 
piece, too, with the Colonel’s letters ; for he and Eliza- 
beth had exchanged much formal correspondence on 
the subjects of the kitchen chimney and of the tabby- 
cat he pensioned. 

“ When he comes back from the Front and sees 
you,” I threatened her, “ it may alter everything. 
If you become an old man’s darling ” 

“Brrrr!” shuddered Elizabeth. 

“ Plenty of girls do. You might like it better than 
marrying the Lion-Tamer, after all. . . . And don’t 
say I didn’t warn you if it does come off ” 

“ Give me your handkerchief,” said Elizabeth, with- 
out ceremony plucking the green silk handkerchief 
out of my smock pocket. “ I want to tie a knot in 
it.” 

She tossed it back to me as we went on. 

“What’s that for?” I demanded. “To remind 
you of what I said about that old Colonel of yours? ” 

“ No,” from Elizabeth. “ It’s to remind you of 
something, Joan. ” 

As the corrugated iron roof of the hut came into 
sight beyond the great white cliff of a hawthorn bush 
she spoke earnestly, but with an imp of mischief danc- 
ing in each of her eyes. 

“ Whatever happens, however much better you may 


AFTER-EFFECTS 


77 

feel, however much more you may laugh and talk like 
your old self, I want you always to remember one 
thing. I want you to be sure — sure to go on think- 
ing of Harry at least once every day l ” 

And before I could take the unsympathetic little 
wretch by her overalled shoulders and shake her, be- 
fore I could pull her short hair, or even retort by a 
single word, we were back at the camp among the 
girls — with a fresh trial awaiting us ! 


CHAPTER VIII 


THE PLUNGE 


“Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave.” — M ilton. 


Y ES! Not even yet was there to be rest after 
the exertions of the first day’s land-work. 

As Elizabeth and I hobbled into the hut ten 
minutes after the others, Vic’s voice hailed us above the 
laughing clatter: 

“ Here, Celery-face and Mop ! Off with your spot- 
less — I don’t think — uniforms, and come on for a 
nice swim ! ” 

“Swim?” we echoed, glancing aghast about the 


hut. 

The gang of timber girls, with Miss Easton, had 
returned from their woods, and they and the farm 
girls were in various stages of getting out of land-kit 
and into swimming costumes. 

After hard work, here they were all ready again 
for hard play, for exercise, for plunging into cold 
water. 

I began to say something wistful about embroca- 
tion. 

“ Embrocation ? There’s a whole pool of some- 
thing better for you than embrocation outside,” Vic 
said with scorn. “ You get those two extra costumes 
78 


THE PLUNGE 79 

out, Sybil, will you? And you, kids, off with your 
boots.” 

There was no gainsaying this redoubtable Vic. 
Big, and brown, and beaming with good-humor, she stood 
over us. We just had to start unlacing our gaiters. 

The girls trooped out into the meadow in coats 
over their bathing dresses. Vic and Sybil waited 
inexorably, for us. Reluctantly and stiffly I took off 
my overall. And I saw Vic’s eyes fasten upon the 
garments that I was wearing underneath. 

They were the same “ pretties ” that I always wore 
in town under my georgette blouses. I made them 
myself. The under-bodice that attracted Vic’s notice 
was of bluish-pink crepe-de-Chine with mauve satin 
ribbon shoulder-straps, and with the wings of a sky- 
blue bird — for Happiness — embroidered across the 
front. 

“ That’s a dinky 6 casserole ’ you’ve got on there, 
young Celery-face,” pronounced Vic, scrutinizing this 
garment. “ Swanky Royal Air Service crest touch ! 
And a silk 6 chim ’ underneath it, too ! My word 1 
You won’t be wearing those things long on the farm, 
though. Look here, Syb ! ” 

Sybil, who had brought out the spare costumes, 
came up. From her voice and ways I’d fancied that 
she would sympathize with my own idea of dressing 
for the Land. This was to make it a point of self- 
respect that, though I must wear coarse holland and 
rough stuff for my outside things, my under-garments 
should still be as dainty as ever. 


80 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


It surprised me when Sybil, glancing at my under- 
things, shook her head deprecatingly. 

“ Those won’t do,” she told me gently. “ Not for 
cleaning out cow-houses in! You don’t find a man- 
worker — well ! ” she laughed, “ you never find a man 
wearing pink crepe-de-Chine all day. But what I 
mean is that when you’re on a man’s job you’ve got 
to dress the part, not just foj* the look of it, but for 
the use. A man works 4 in the sweat of his brow ’ — 
and of his body. So he has got to have clothes he can 
sweat into comfortably — to put it frankly. He 
doesn’t wear things that hold the moisture and 
cling — as yours are doing now.” 

I glanced down. The crepe and ribbons certainly 
were clinging to me. Moreover, they were very chilly 
now I’d stopped moving about. 

“ Give you your death of cold, those would,” Vic 
declared, and Sybil, wrapping a towel round my 
shoulders, supported her. 

44 Working as a man, you simply can’t wear the 
clothes you wore when you were just sitting still as 
a girl ! ” she remarked. 

44 1 can’t wear woollies and sweaters next me,” I 
protested. 44 I would rather die of cold ! ” 

44 You needn’t wear wool,” Sybil said, as I got stiffly 
into my costume. 44 Though of course athletes say 
a sweater next your skin is the only thing. They do 
scoff at the way women wear four thicknesses of silk 
or lace, and then a 4 sweater ’ over it all, doing no good ! 
But you must wear a woven vest or one of linen 


THE PLUNGE 


81 


mesh — or anything that dries quickly, and lets the 
air through to your skin. I’ll lend you something, 
then you can order more.” 

“ And keep dinky undies 
For civvies and Sundays,” 

sang out Vic. “ Now then, ready?” 

Vic caught each of us by an arm, and ran us out 
of hut and home, down the green and daisied meadow 
at the back of the camp. 

In front of us two girls, with bare legs showing 
under their ballooning Land Army coats, and a third 
swathed round with a bath-robe, were gambolling 
like lambs down the grassy path. From behind the 
alders at the bottom came sounds of splashing and 
laughter. We followed to where the bank descended 
under trees to the Welsh trout-stream, brightly clear 
as a child’s eyes, with little cataracts between mossy 
boulders from which the girls could dive into the wide, 
smooth pool that reflected them. 

Well! It was all the bathroom the camp had. We 
might as well get in and treat it as a good wash ! 

Elizabeth, on the pool brink, said : 

“ N — neither of us can swim, you know — oooh ! 99 
she wound up with her little screech. Vic, gently, but 
firmly, had shoved her under water. 

I dipped before she could catch hold of me, while 
the others shouted with laughter. The first moment 
was awful. Then came the glorious glow and tingle 
of reaction, and we felt quite jolly, as Vic promised 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


82 

that she and young Sybil would soon teach us to swim. 

“ In and out with you today, though/* she de- 
creed. “ Here’s the towel — have a scrub now. I’ll 
rub you down.” 

Scarified but warm enough, we sat under an alder 
in our overcoats, watching the others until tea-time 
or supper-time as we cared to call it. And then — 
Ah! It was as though one substantial midday meal 
had never been. . . . 

We just legged it (“for the best!” as the Timber 
girls shouted) back to the mess-table in the Hut! 


CHAPTER IX 


OUR MESS-MATES 

“ Whence came ye, merry Damsels, whence came ye, 

So many, and so many, and such glee?” 

— Keats. 

L ATER Elizabeth and I talked to Miss Easton, 
who, while the Campites played, read, sewed, or 
danced as before, told us a little about them 
all — these girls, who were already less strange to us, 
and who were all to become our friends. 

Miss Easton began with her own story. Her last 
job had been in a munitions factory, where she’d 
worked ten hours a day on a skeleton bridge 35 feet up 
in the air, which had danced and quivered with the 
heat of a row of furnaces below. She said it always 
felt like Vesuvius going to break into eruption. Not 
unnaturally her health had broken down. 

At the Labour Exchange she had mentioned <e For- 
estry ” as a forlorn hope, and they’d given her a 
trial — in more senses than one. 

She had been set to cross-cut sawing with a hard- 
ened “ old hand.” Twenty-five trees was counted a 
day’s work. Halfway through the twenty-third she 
had fainted clean off. For a week she’d crept back 
to her billet, and had just taken her aches and blisters 
to bed, where she lay like a log until the next morning. 
83 


84 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


Now she could stand anything — climb like a cat or 
run like a deer. 

" I feel finer every day,” she told us, smiling. 

Then she told us of the others, in order of what 
used to be called “ Social Importance.” I suppose 
Sybil Wentworth came first. She was the country- 
house girl, who had only known London as the Season, 
the Park, Hurlingham and Henley. Her own home 
was lovely, Miss Easton said ; there was Georgian wing 
and a Norman chapel, and it boasted one of those 
other countless bedrooms where Queen Elizabeth had 
passed a night. 

Now Sybil’s mattress was drawn up next to Lil’s, 
who had been maid-of-all-work in one of the million 
villas that are too small to house and feed a servant 
decently, but where a servant must be kept because 
one is kept in bigger houses. 

Among Lil’s mates were a girl from Somerville, a 
pickle-factory hand, a student of music, and Vic the 
Cockney. 

In every community of girls is one who will always 
take the lead by virtue of her vitality and initiative. 
Here it was Victoria Jelks, the ex-coster girl from 
Kentish Town, who stood out as one of the hand- 
somest, “ goeyest,” and most efficient women I have 
met. 

The forewoman took Vic’s advice; Sybil deferred 
to her. Yet she belonged to the class that we have 
seen blackening Hampstead Heath on Bank Holidays, 
grimy and anaemic, made ugly by the life and toil of 


OUR MESS-MATES 


85 


town. The country, the air, the healthy work have 
beautified them back into the mould that Nature meant; 
have given them back shapeliness and colour. 

I pondered over the miracle, as I saw it now. 

Eor these once-town girls, too, the two great draw- 
backs of the country did not exist. Dulness, loneli- 
ness ! How could they feel lonely or bored leading this 
communal life all set to laughter? No wonder if they 
found it like the very best bits of being back at school 
again ! With fewer restrictions, too, with what wealth 
of new ideas, fresh outlooks on life gained by the inter- 
mingling of class with class. . . . 

Kitchener’s First Army was not more of a med- 
ley of types ! 

46 Wh}^,” Elizabeth asked softly, 44 have they all 
joined up?” 

44 Oh ! Different reasons they give,” answered the 
forewoman. 44 One joins because her pal joined. Lil 
there was tired of domestic service — I’m sure I don’t 
blame her. Another hears what fun the life is — and 
it is fun, even if we do have to work hard. We 
couldn’t work so hard if it weren’t fun! Another 
thinks it’s a shame if we can’t do as much as the 
Frenchwomen do. Another girl just said. 4 I’ve got 
six brothers serving. ’ ” 

Here a lump came into my throat as I listened. 
I thought of my own brothers. Jack, who went down 
with his ship in T5 — Guy with his guns — Victor, 
the youngest of us all, who had just got his wings, 
and was off to join his air squadron in France. What 


86 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


sort of sister was I to those fighting boys? Un- 
worthy! Poor in physique and grit, I’d been ready 
to buy myself out of the Land Army almost before 
I’d given it a trial. 

I was still thinking of that after “ Lights out,” 
when all the girls were already asleep. 

But Elizabeth, from the next mattress, heard. 

She crept near in the darkness. 

“Joan! What is it? Why are you crying?” 
she whispered. “ Are you cross because I teased you 
about that wretched Harry ? ” 

“No! Oh, no,” I whispered back. “ It’s only that 
I — I felt ashamed of myself ! There was I — ready 
to jack up this morning! I won’t now. No, not if 
I never stop feeling stiff again, I shall stick it. I’ve 
just made up my mind this minute.” 

“ You made it up before,” murmured my chum, 
wriggling back to her mattress. “ You made it up 
this morning when that young man said ” 

“ Oh, bother that interfering young man,” I in- 
terrupted, “ I hope I don’t see him again.” 

Elizabeth, as she rolled over again, said drowsily 
but firmly, “ You’ll see him again before three days 
are up.” 


CHAPTER X 


THE MILKING-LESSON 
“I would I were a milkmaid.” — T ennyson. 

E LIZABETH was right in her prediction. 

Before the three next days were up I had 
again encountered this Captain Holiday. 

This time it was not in that Augean stable of a 
cow-house — which, by the way, I had finished clean- 
ing out — thereby earning a word of approbation 
from Mr. Price, and also hardening my muscles. I 
no longer felt that my body was full of new bones, all 
hurting me at once. I felt, already, as if I were gain- 
ing a new body. 

Quite ready for anything I felt on that late after- 
noon when Mrs. Price came to me with the two big 
milk pails. 

“ Please scald these out,” said the farmer’s daintily- 
featured little wife. “ You can take your first milk- 
ing-lesson this evening.” 

I was delighted as I washed my hands in the back 
kitchen, scalded out the pails, and followed Mrs. Price 
in her crisp grey overall into the big cow stall. 

Milking! This would be so much easier, as well as 
more enjoyable, than wielding that pitchfork and 
bending my back over that heavy barrow to and from 
that disgusting midden! 


87 


88 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


How fragrant, after that last job, was the atmos- 
phere of the big stable, where the breath of the cows 
mingled with the incomparable smell of the new milk 
that was already frothing and foaming into the pail 
held between the knees of the Land Girl “ Curley ” — 
that straight-haired, smiling brunette. 

She was sitting milking the biggest of the seven 
black-and-white cows that stood tied up in a row. 
At the stall next to her sat Sybil on a three-legged 
stool of heavy oak, also milking busily. 

66 Now, Joan, you shall start away on Clover here. 
She’s the easiest,” said Mrs. Price, leading me to a 
cow at the farther end of the stable — a cow that was 
snowy white but for the broad band of black that en- 
circled her body and the black tassel of her tail. 

The farmer’s wife took that tail in her hand and 
with a twist of straw-rope tied it down to one of the 
cow’s hind-legs. 

“ That is to stop her flicking you in the eye with 
it,” explained Mrs. Price. “ Now Vic always puts 
the tail to the cow’s side and pins it down by leaning 
her head against it; but you can’t manage that yet. 
Always nervous they are at first, with a stranger. 
Soon get used to you,” Mrs. Price assured me, as 
the cow looked round, tossed her head, shuffled her 
little hoofs, and would have twitched that captive tail. 
“ I’ll talk to her a little.” 

Fondling her silky flanks, the farmer’s wife spoke to 
Clover, in soothing, softly-accented words that I sup- 
pose were Greek to Curley and Sybil — but I still re- 


THE MILKING-LESSON 


89 


membered a little of the language that had been chat- 
tered about me in those far-off school-room days, when 
I’d worn a plait and wandered about a Welsh farm, 
so differently run from this one. 

I’d seen Dad’s cowman stand to milk on the steep 
hillside, where the cows grazed. He had called to his 
cows just like this. 

“Little heart!” cooed Mrs. Price, in Welsh. 
“ Heart of gold ! Best white sugar, you are ! Little 
Clover, dear! I’ll start her, Joan.” 

She set the wide-lipped pail under the cow, and 
with that other small, capable hand of hers began 
milking where she stood. Sharply and copiously the 
white spurts ran through her fingers. 

“ Now, Joan,” she said in a moment. “Sit down 
to it. Take your pail so. Now your fingers like 
this. Now try.” 

I tried. 

Once or twice I’d been allowed to try at home, long 
ago. But how I’d forgotten ! 

Heavens ! How difficult it was ! If Clover were 
the easiest cow in that stable, I should have been sorry 
to try the most unyielding one! It was almost im- 
possible to me at first to squeeze out even a drop of 
milk. 

I worked away, and quite suddenly I realized that 
it was coming mightily hard on my fingers and fore- 
arms, this work that seemed to be no work at all to 
Mrs. Price, and easy enough to the two other girls. 

“ Do you know how long it takes to make a milker. 


90 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


a really first-class milker? Three years,” declared 
the farmer’s wife impressively. “ And even then she 
has to be born as well as made, like. After all, it’s 
an art, same as playing the piano. But you can learn 
to milk quite well, quite so that the cows get milked 
all right, in a month, say. You’ll do all right, only 
work.” 

I worked without much success, but doggedly. I 
was sweating with effort under my hat and into my 
mesh garments, lent by Sybil. I was flushed, but de- 
termined; terrified of hurting Clover, delighted when 
a meagre spurt of milk did reward me, attentive to 
Mrs. Price’s instructions, and afraid I was showing 
myself up as the completest fool, when — 

Yes, this naturally was the moment that that young 
man’s voice made itself heard behind me. He must 
have come in by the other door farther down the 
stable. 

66 Good evening, Mrs. Price ! ” 

“ Good evening, Captain Holiday. Have you come 
to have another look round?” 

“ You don’t mind, I know,” said the direct, un- 
compromising tone, which I could guess was accom- 
panied by that friendly and ingratiating smile. 

Intent upon my occupation, I went on struggling. 
My back was to him; but there are times when one 
can feel a pair of eyes fixed as surely as one could 
feel a hand placed on the nape of one’s neck. 

* * * * * * * 

Now, looking back, I wonder at myself. 


THE MILKING-LESSON 


91 


Was there really that time when I never wished to 
see him? Was he still nothing to me, then? It seems 
incredible to me, after all that has come since. 

But, that late afternoon, all in the fragrant atmo- 
sphere of the milk that rang in the pails, with the sweet 
grass-scented breath of the cows all about me, he was 
nothing to me, nothing still but an intruder. 

With a sigh of exasperation I tugged at the warm, 
leathery udder of Clover. Strenuous minutes elapsed. 
Still Captain Holiday stood by, saying no word to 
me, but always watching. 

Always conscious of his presence, I saw nothing of 
him but his shadow flung before him, clean-cut blue 
on the yellow-white wall of the stable. 

Then I heard Mrs. Price asking him if he were com- 
fortable at the lodge? 

So that was where he lived; Vic had told me there 
was quite a swanky big lodge to the hospital grounds. 

He told Mrs. Price that they were very nice quar- 
ters. Then came something I hadn’t expected. I 
heard Mrs. Price give a curiously mischievous little 
chuckle. It ran through her voice as she asked the 
next question: 

“ More than enough room there, isn’t there, Cap- 
tain Holiday, for a bachelor? ” 

This was a hint, I know, smiling and plainly meant ! 
Not only that, but I felt her smile taking in myself 
as well as him. 


92 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


She was as bad as Elizabeth. I was glad my back 
was towards both of them. 

Captain Holiday’s cool voice replied: 

“ Quite. That’s why I’m having some people down 
to stay with me. Must have a house-party for the 
concert. You know we*re getting up a concert at 
the hospital, Mrs. Price. Yes, I’m expecting a 
wounded pal of mine down in a day or so.” 

Mrs. Price’s soft voice broke in to speak to me. 

“Tired, Joan? Rest a minute, just- ” 

I moved into a more comfortable position, giving 
a look round before I bent to my task again. 

The young “ Must-know-all,” as the nursery phrase 
has it, was still watching my fingers. What was it in 
his slight smile that seemed to prompt me to what I 
did next? 

I squeezed some milk on to my fingers, and then, 
I know, his smile grew broader. It was as though 
he’d seen that old trick somewhere, and had egged me 
on to it. But where had this soldier watched milking 
before? 

“ That’s coming better now, Joan,” approved Mrs. 
Price. “ That’s because you wetted your fingers. 
Look — dip your fingers in the milk, my mother taught 
me. Easier for the cow and easier for you.” 

I said: 

“ Yes, I remember now seeing the man dip his fingers 
in the pail at Dad’s farm. I’d forgotten. Lots of 
things will come back to me presently.” 

Here, above me, the man’s shadow moved quickly 


THE MILKING-LESSON 


93 


on the wall. It was as though Captain Holiday, still 
planted there behind me, were listening as intently as 
he was watching me. 

Rather confused, I went on to show that I did know 
something about this job. 

“ I saw on the efficiency test papers,” said I, 44 that 
the examiners from headquarters don’t like the wet 
milking. It said preference would be given to dry 
milking.” 

44 Cleaner, for some, p’raps,” said Mrs. Price. 
* 4 Fifteen marks, too ; but I thought you were no town 
girl! Doesn’t it show now, Captain Holiday?” 

A non-committal 44 Um ” came from Captain Holi- 
day as his tall shadow slid away from the wall and 
out of the farmyard just as Elizabeth and Vic came 
in. 

44 Again ! ” was my chum’s laconic comment when we 
were walking home. 

I laughed good-humouredly enough, for I was a little 
pleased with the way I’d got on with my work. 

44 Elizabeth, you’re getting one-idea’ed,” I told her 
as I strolled along, picking out of the hedge a country 
nosegay of stitchwort and dog-violets and primroses 
with one gay pink flower of campion. 44 1 must say 
I shall be glad when Hackenschmidt the Second turns 
up ” 

44 Who? ” 

44 The hefty Brute who’s going to tame you, you 
Man-hater, when the time comes,” I explained, putting 
a leaf of Herb-Robert, pungent-scented and lacy, as 


94 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


frill to my bouquet. “ I shall be able to rag you about 
him then, instead of having to put up with your non- 
sense. You wait.” 

“Yes, I’m waiting,” nodded Elizabeth grimly. 

I said 66 All things come to her who waits. I expect 
he’ll take at least seventeens in boots! And throw 
them at you ! ” 


CHAPTER XI 


THE LAND-GULLS 5 LETTER-BAG 

“A word in due season, how good it is ! ”r— Scripture. 

A T the Camp we found the Timber-gang buzzing 
about what constituted for all of us the great 
event of the day — the day’s mail. 

It arrived after the girls were already at work, so 
that since breakfast they had been looking forward to 
the letters, wondering about them. . . . 

Ah, these letters ! Most people realize by this time 
how much they have always meant to the boys at the 
Front. They meant as much and more to the war- 
working girls ! You people who “ can’t be bothered to 
write much,” you correspondents who “ forget ” — I 
wish you could have seen that group of uniformed 
lasses with the green Forestry ribbons round their hats, 
clustering about the forewoman who held the packet. 
I wish you could have heard the eager tone of their 
“ Any for me? ” 

“ Two for you, Curley — one from France. Oh! 
girls, look at the snapshots of me sister’s nippers. 
‘ To Auntie Yic, with love from Stan ’ — all right, ain’t 
it? ” cried Vic. 

“ Only these four for me? ” exclaimed the red-haired 
Welsh timber girl. 


95 


96 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


44 And none for me! Isn’t it a cruel shame? ” 
lamented Lil. 44 Here, Aggie, do let me have a read of 
yours ” 

44 1 say, this isn’t for me. It got slipped in among 
mine. 4 Miss Weare ’ — who’s she when she’s at home? 
Oh ! The little new one. Here, Mop ” 

Elizabeth took the letter. 

I was reading a kind letter from Agatha, my step- 
mother, who ended with, 44 Still I hope you will not 
find that this new venture of yours is a mistake after 
all,” when there was a little sudden laugh and a quick 
exclamation from my chum at my elbow. 

44 Joan, I say, Joan! ” 

44 Yes? Who’ve you heard from?” 

44 Who d’y ou think ? ” she returned amusedly, tak- 
ing me by the elbow to draw me aside into the porch. 
44 I’ll give you three guesses ! ” 

44 Man or woman? Ah, I needn’t ask. Woman, of 
course? ” 

44 As it happens, no ! ” 

44 What? A man?” I exclaimed. 44 But you never 
write to any men ” 

44 Don’t I? Ido.” 

44 Only to one landlord,” I said. 44 Only to the an- 
cient Colonel ! ” 

Elizabeth gave her gurgling boyish chuckle. 

44 Right in one,” she said. 44 It is the old Colonel 
again. You know I wrote to him last about that loose 
scullery tap that we had to leave as it was. Well, he’s 


THE LAND-GIRLS’ LETTER-BAG 97 


home on sick leave now, he says, and he writes from 
our flat — his own flat, I mean. Only he’s coming 
down here very shortly ” 

“ Here? ” I exclaimed, glancing round the big hut, 
with its characteristic grouping of Land Girls off 
duty. 

Some of them were still poring and chattering over 
their mail; Peggy, with her foot upon a chair, was 
cleaning her hobnailed boots; Vic, now clad in a 
bathing costume and her Land Army hat, was sitting 
on a comer of the table, swinging her legs, whistling, 
and stitching at a button that had come loose on her 
khaki breeches. 

“ This is no place for a dear old gentleman like your 
colonel! What does he want to come here for?” I 
added. 

“ Says he’ll be staying with a friend of his in this 
neighbourhood,” explained Elizabeth, handing me the 
note with the neat, precise handwriting that we had 
seen on so many business letters, “ and that as I was 
here he would give himself the pleasure of calling upon 
me if he might. Antediluvian touch, isn’t it? And, 
of course, he won’t be allowed to call here, I suppose, 
even at his age.” 

“ Oh, but I hope we shall meet him,” I said, as I 
prepared to get into bathing-things again for my 
swimming lesson from Vic and Sybil in the pool. “ It 
will be rather fun, after all our guess-work, to see 
what the funny old thing really is like.” 


98 A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 

Now this was vouchsafed to us in a few days from 
then. And I admit that this, and what it brought in 
its train, has been quite one of the shocks of my 
life. 


CHAPTER XII 


WE “ GET USED TO IT 99 

“ This is the life. 

This is the life. 

This is the life — for mine!” 

— The Bing Boys. 

W E had been at Mr. Price’s farm for a week 
now. In that short time the miracle had 
begun to work. 

Seven bottles of the most powerful pick-me-up could 
not have worked in that time what was done by these 
seven natural tonics — fresh air, physical toil, simple, 
wholesome food, cold water, newness of occupation, 
laughter with comradeship, and profound sleep 
o’ nights ! 

“ This is pretty awful, you know,” we whispered 
rebelliously to each other half a dozen times a day. 
But 

Already we were beginning to enjoy it all! Neither 
of us admitted this, of course. For my part, I should 
have felt it was too ridiculously soon to enjoy anything 
in life again — and such a life ! 

That rag-time rabble of girls ! That lack of civi- 
lized comforts in camp ! Vic’s orders for the day ! 
This routine of jobs only fit for a farm-lad — yet 
what thrills of pride ran through me at the thought 
99 


100 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


that I, Joan Matthews, was doing them at all, and 
that soon I should begin to do them quite well! 

X had cleaned out a hopelessly filthy-looking cow- 
house — thrill of pride number one — all by myself — 
nearly. No rush of work accomplished at the office 
had ever given me such satisfaction ! Then I’d taken 
three milking lessons, at the first of which Mrs. Price 
said I’d made a good start — thrill number two. Now 
Mr. Price had set me and my chum on to a new job — 
thrill number three — in which he was instructing us 
himself. 

This was to harness his old white mare, Blossom, 
to the cart, to take it down to the field of roots across 
the road from the farm, and to fork up roots, which 
we were presently to pulp into food for the bullocks, 
which were still being partly stable-fed each day. 

Into that big field, bordered by elms, through which 
we caught glimpses of a faintly purple range of 
mountains, Elizabeth and I tramped with the farmer; 
she at Blossom’s mild head, I carrying a fork and lis- 
tening to that gentle giant, Mr. Price. 

“ When we have got a cart-load I will take you 
to the grinding-machine and show you how you mash 
these things up,” he told me. 44 Very handy, the new 
power-engine! Three belts for shafting I’ve got 
from the engine to the machine. Put it in this winter, 
I did. All done by horse-power before that. Won- 
derful ! What they’re getting to do now in the farms ! 
Wouldn’t have believed it in my father’s time — no, nor 
that I should have little young ladies like that one to 


WE “ GET USED TO IT ” 


101 


lead the horses for me,” he smiled. “ Stop her here, 
missy. Whoa, back ! It’s up here we’ll start.” 

But before Elizabeth had left the horse’s head, be- 
fore I’d dug my fork more than once into the rich- 
smelling earth, a “ Good morning ” sounded behind us, 
in a deep but gentle voice. 

We turned, I saying resignedly to myself in that 
flash : 

66 1 suppose it’s Captain Holiday again — sounds as 
meek as Moses for once, but he’s evidently come to see 
how the Land Girls get on with their root-digging, 
and to tell them all about it.” 

And I found that I was wrong. 

The young man who’d been tramping up that field 
behind us was not Captain Holiday, though he wore 
khaki and leggings like his. 

“ Er ” he began with a hand to his cap, and ob- 

viously not sure whether he ought to speak first to 
the farmer or to me. “I — er — saw you from the 
road there. If you don’t mind, aren’t you ” — nerv- 
ously — 66 aren’t you the two ladies from London?” 

“ Yes,” I said, standing there rather astonished. 

The young officer went on with his eyes on the cart, 
that shut out any view of Elizabeth. 

“ Oh, yes. I hope you don’t mind, but I thought 
I’d come up and — er — speak ” 

At that moment I thought I had never in my life 
seen anybody so agonizingly timid. Gazing at the 
D.S.O. ribbon on his chest, I could only wonder if he 
had won it whilst he was in a high fever and did not 


102 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


know what he was doing. . . . Miserably shy, too, he 
looked to me. 

But he didn’t go away. He went on talking, though 
stammeringly. 

“ You know, I know you both quite well — I mean 
by name, of course. We’ve — we’ve exchanged plenty 
of letters and all that,” he went on stammeringly. 

“ I’m afraid it’s a mistake,” I began. 

“ Oh — er — no,” he interrupted. “ I’d better tell 
you who I am — stupid of me. I’m — er — my name 
is Fielding. Colonel Fielding.” 

Colonel F ielding ! — F ielding ? 

But that was the name of our landlord! That was 
the officer from whom we’d taken over our Golder’s 
Green flat ! 

How we’d talked and talked over the fancy pic- 
ture that we had made up of him — the white-mous- 
tached old warrior of a bygone age, as we had imagined 
him ! 

Now, here he stood before us — and could anything 
be less like our preconceived view of him? 

Colonel Fielding in the flesh was a young man of 
twenty-six, slim-waisted and fair. The white mous- 
tache of our imaginings was represented by the merest 
hint of close-cropped golden down upon his upper lip. 

I could hardly believe it. 

“ Do you mean,” I exclaimed, “ that you are really 
the Colonel Fielding who let us his flat?” 

“ Er — yes. I am.” He reddened, actually red- 
dened all over his face as he cleared his throat and 


WE “ GET USED TO IT ” 


103 


added, “ Do you mind telling me — are you Miss Eliza- 
beth Weare? 99 

“ No, I’m Miss Matthews,” I told him. “ That’s 
Miss Weare ” 

For it was at this moment that Blossom dragged the 
cart a step forward, and Elizabeth, calling manfully. 
“ Whoa-back ! ” in imitation of Mr. Price, reached up 
to her head again, and pulled her round. 

I suppose to the end of his days one man will see 
Elizabeth as she was at that moment in the field of 
roots. 

It was a colourful and blowy day. The sky, threat- 
ening rain, showed capricious clouds, dove-grey and 
silver-white, tossing across the blue. A mauve screen 
of Welsh hills, a nearer fringe of budding elms bor- 
dered that big field of lush brown-and-purply-green. 
Set in the middle of it like a giant’s toy was the scarlet- 
painted farm-cart with the white mare ; a small, boyish, 
crop-haired, smocked and breeched Land-girl at her 
head. 

Colour and sunburn suited my chum’s small face. 
The Land Army hat had been drenched by several 
showers to a becoming softness over her thick hair. 
She held herself (even in those early days of freedom 
from skirts) with a new poise. She was as effective as 
any poster in the Tube! but with no Tube atmosphere 
about her; no! the strong scents of earth, the wine- 
sweet breath of Spring wind that tossed the black locks 
on her rosied cheeks, and flapped in her smock, billow- 
ing it out below her belt or furling it above her legs — 


104 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


her legs which were at once sturdy and dainty. 
Briefly, she looked ripping. And I saw that Colonel 
Fielding saw it even in that first moment of his greet- 
ing her. 

It was not much more than a greeting and a good- 
bye ; a word to the farmer about 44 hoping he didn’t 
mind ” — which would appear to be the youthful colo- 
nel’s pet stand-by of a phrase. 

44 Er — I might be down for some time probabty,” 
he concluded, reddening again. 44 Perhaps I might be 
allowed to call? ” 

Elizabeth, without looking at him, answered in a 
tone like the shutting of a door : 

44 We live in camp here. Men aren’t allowed there.” 

44 Oh — sorry. I hope you didn’t mind. Per- 
haps,” he added — faint but pursuing — 44 1 shall see 
3 r ou again — er — somewhere ” 

Elizabeth, stony little wretch, said nothing at all. 
I think I began to say 44 Are you staying at Careg? ” 
out of sheer pity, but it was Mr. Price, the gentle 
Welsh giant, who broke in: 

44 Yes, sure! Any time you like to see over the 
farm ! I’ll show you our shire horses ! Interest you, 
those would. You shall come round with me.” 

44 Oh, thanks. I should love to,” murmured Colonel 
Fielding, with one last glance at my chum before he 
melted away out of the landscape. 

Even as he did so, I saw the expression on that fair, 
girlish face of the man we’d always nicknamed 44 Eliza- 
beth’s Old Colonel.” He was unmistakably, unfeign- 



IJY agreed that we 

people , 


were simply loving the life 
the work and the play 


and 


the 























WE “ GET USED TO IT ” 


105 


edly admiring. It made him show, for a second, quite 
a determined gleam between his long lashes. 

But w T hat a waste of time for him to admire Elizabeth 
— at least if he tried to show it ! He was, anyhow, 
not the sort of person, I decided, that any girl would 
fall in love with ! 

Finnicky, I called him. I said so afterwards to 
Elizabeth. 

Elizabeth said she was so busy with the horse she 
hadn’t had time to see what he was like. 

Then (as I should have told you) we forgot all about 
that encounter in the root-field. 

For three days we lived the Life Laborious; busy 
and full, but empty of all young men. Not a glimpse 
of one. 

Then, one evening down at the swimming-pool, I said 
to Elizabeth, sitting on a mossy boulder and waiting 
for Vic to come up: 

66 Do you know we’ve been here for three weeks 
now? I feel as if we had been Land Girls all our lives. 
But the last week has been the quickest ” 

“ — And the j oiliest!” interrupted my chum. 

Then we both burst out laughing together. 

Pretence was at an end. We agreed that we were 
simply loving the life and the people, the work and 
the pla}\ 

As for me, I was such a different girl. I hadn’t time 
to think about how different. 

“ Ready, Celery-face?” sang out Vic, striding 
from behind the alder where she’d flung off her coat. 


106 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


A group of girls watched her — the former star of 
a London swimming-bath — as she took her plunge into 
the pool. 

Then I waded in after her, and, all awkwardly still, 
swam the dozen strokes that brought me up to her. 
Panting, I held on to her. An absurdly short little 
effort — but it was the taste of a new function to me, 
the beginner. What years I’d wasted in not knowing 
how to swim ! But oh, the joy of it now ! 

I looked round to see Elizabeth striking out with 
arms that were, like mine, milky-white to the elbow 
and then gloved in sunburn. 

For by now I must tell you we had got our “ Land 
Girl’s complexion.” This asset is gained in three dis- 
tinct stages. 

First stage : A scorching and very unbecoming scar- 
let that spread itself over the face. The recruit from 
town, seeing herself with a tomato-nose set between 
crimson cheeks, flies to her old and true friend, the 
powder-puff. Useless! To powder over that red is 
like putting a coat of transparent whitewash over a 
brick wall. 

The second stage : Soreness and blisters ; a skin 
that peels off in flakes like the bark of a silver birch. 
No help for this! Sybil had given me cucumber and 
benzoin lotion to cool the smart, but the only cure 
was that which time brought about. 

Stage the third: A smooth, even wash of honey-tan 
over the newly-bloomed roses of the cheeks; the colour 
of the ripe glow on a sun-kissed peach. 


WE 44 GET USED TO IT ” 


107 


Elizabeth had reached this becoming stage on the 
day that Colonel Fielding had seen her first at the 
white mare’s head in the field of roots, and I was 
scarcely a day behind her. I laughed at the reflection 
in the pool of the girl whom Vic and the others still 
nicknamed 44 Celery-face ! ” 

Rosier than ever after our swim, we dressed and 
strolled together down the lanes. For 44 the more you 
have of a thing the more you want it ” applies to fresh 
air as well as to the other essentials of life. 

Now that we were working out of doors all day, 
we found we wanted to stay out of doors in the even- 
ing! How unlike town, where, having worked all day 
in a stuffy office, our one idea of relaxation was an 
equally stuffy theatre! 

But I did sometimes miss the theatre! Upon this 
very evening I said to Elizabeth: 

44 The birds are lovely tonight — listen ! But da 
you know what? I would give anything to be going 
to a revue tonight; just to see some pretty girls’ 
clothes after these weeks of felt hats and breeches ! 
Just to hear some gay tunes from a good band ! ” 

44 Yes,” agreed Elizabeth, quite dreamily for her. 
44 1 would like to hear a little music again just for 
once. I ” 

44 Who’s saying they want to hear a little music?” 
It was a merry girl’s voice that broke upon our ears. 
44 Here’s where dreams come true ! ” 


CHAPTER XIII 


AN INVITATION 

W E looked to the right. On a gate in the 
blossoming hedge sat the tiny Timber-girl 
Peggy, she who in the evening always wore 
a flower pinned by a badge to the breast of her crisply- 
ironed smock. This evening it was a spray of honey- 
suckle. 

Beside her, leaning his elbows on the gate, stood a 
blue-suited young soldier from the hospital; he also 
wore a large spray of honeysuckle in his button-hole, 
and another in his khaki cap, which was further deco- 
rated by a lucky gollywog in pink and green w T ool! 
He touched it smiling as we paused beside our little 
comrade. 

“ Oh, talking of music, girls,” said Peggy, “ look 
what my boy’s got for you, for all of us ! Show them, 
Syd.” 

Syd, who was a sergeant, and had the cheerfullest 
pink face I have ever seen above a blue jacket, thrust 
his hand into the pocket of that jacket, and brought, 
out a large envelope which he handed to me. It w r as 
unaddressed and open. I took out a sort of illumi- 
nated card; its border showed floral designs, a rising 
sun, black cats, and several regimental crests. In cur- 
liest copperplate there was written: 

108 


AN INVITATION 


109 


To the Lady Land-Workers, 

Careg Camp. 

You are invited to a 
GRAND CONCERT, 
to be held at 

The careg auxiliary red cross hospital, 
on the night of June 10. 

To commence at 
7 pip emma 

( Tanks and bi-planes at 9.45.) 

“ How lovely ! ” I exclaimed, handing this card back 
to Peggy. “ I heard something about there being a 
concert at the hospital, but I never knew we were to 
be asked.” 

“ Yes, miss,” said Sergeant “ Syd ” in a husky, boy- 
ish voice. “ Captain Holiday himself said the invita- 
tion was to go to the camp in good time, so that all 
of the young ladies might arrange to come. He hoped 
all of you would, of course.” 

“ Tell him not to worry, we’re all for it,” declared 
saucy little Peggy from her gate. “ I daresay it’ll 
be a wash-out of a concert ” — with a wink at us — 
“ but we’ll have to be thankful for what we can get 
in the Land Army. I suppose you’ll give us a solo on 
the comb? And is your Captain Holiday going to 
oblige at the concert, Syd ? ” 

“ Not him! Says he doesn’t know one tune from 
another,” laughed the wounded soldier. “ Sitting in 
the audience with you young ladies, that’s the job 
he’s for.” 


110 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


44 I’m astonished at him,” said Peggy, with a mis- 
chievous smile straight at me. 

Syd added: 

44 I tell you who is a very fine singer, now — we 
could listen to him all night — his voice is a fair treat, 
and he’s going to sing. It’s that officer that Captain 
Holiday’s got staying at the Lodge with him. Colonel 
Fielding, his name is.” 

I exclaimed: 

44 Oh ! So he’s staying at the Lodge ! ” 

Peggy gave me a quick look and said: 

44 So he’s another friend of yours ? ” 

44 No,” I explained. 64 We’ve just met him.” Then, 
thinking it would be silly to make any mystery about 
all this, I explained about Colonel Fielding being our 
landlord in London, and I mentioned the business let- 
ters about breakages and drains. 

44 And we’re to hear him sing, are we?” I con- 
cluded — and again Sergeant Syd enlarged upon what 
a treat it would be for anybody who liked good music. 

44 Oh, but I don’t know anything about 4 good ’ mu- 
sic,” said Elizabeth, carelessly. 

We went on, leaving that picturesque group of Land- 
girl and soldier by that gate in the hedge. 

Presently I found myself thinking of the way Colo- 
nel Fielding’s delicate fair face had lighted up at the 
sight of Elizabeth, sturdy and muddy and sweet, in 
the mangold-field. 


AN INVITATION 


111 


How obviously he had admired that sight ! 

He was probably looking forward to seeing it again. 
Poor wretched young manl For if he imagined that 
my boyish, independent, man-hating little chum would 
have a word for him at that concert — whatever he 
sang like — a bitter disappointment was in store for 
him, thought I. I had seen Elizabeth before, when 
men had been attracted. Prickly as a hedgehog she 
had become in the twinkling of an eye! 

While I was thus musing, she was gazing above the 
hedge at the hills in the gloaming, purple against a 
primrose belt of sky. A heavenly evening! No won- 
der Elizabeth wanted to drink in the beauty of country 
and sky rather than to talk. I felt as she did. 

Suddenly Elizabeth spoke, in a matter of fact tone 
that sounded as if she had just dragged herself back 
into the life of every day. 

“That concert,” she said, “won’t be bad fun.” 

“ I expect it will be ripping,” I agreed, as we took 
the turning that led us back by a roundabout way to 
the camp again. “ Wasn’t that invitation-card for it 
rather sweet? You know he’d painted all those crests 
and flowers and things himself.” 

“ He did? ” said Elizabeth, “ he or Captain Holiday, 
d’you mean? ” 

I turned to her a little puzzled. 

“ Captain Holiday — or who? ” I said. 

Quickly Elizabeth slipped out — “ or Colonel Field- 
ing, of course ! ” 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


112 

Then she laughed, and went on quickly : 44 What 
rot ! ” and she turned aside to pull a wild rose out of 
the hedge above the pond. 

“ Of course I wasn’t thinking about what I was 
saying. It is Peggy’s sergeant who paints those 
things, isn’t it?” she said. 

I looked at her. 

With her face still turned to the hedge she went 
on talking rather quickly. 

44 Yes ; Peggy told me her boy was 4 very clever 
at anything in the artistic line.’ He does designs for 
belts, and mats, and cushion covers himself, and they’re 
sold at Red Cross sales ; and the most lovely necklaces 
made out of beads of wallpaper ! ” pursued Elizabeth, 
as if she were interested in nothing on earth so much 
as in the artistic productions of Peggy’s boy. 

But why had she coupled the names of Captain Holi- 
day and Colonel Fielding as if they were the names 
uppermost in her thoughts? 

How oddly, how aptly she’d slipped out that Colonel 
Fielding 1 Could she — could she have been 44 thinking 
of him.” . . . 

Oh! 

How could I think such a lunatic thing! In spite 
of all I’d threatened of her getting 44 tamed ” one day ! 

Not Elizabeth. Anybody else, but Elizabeth — No! 
I was sure of that. 

******* 

No sooner had Peggy brought in to our forewoman 


AN INVITATION 


113 


that illuminated invitation to the wounded soldiers’ 
concert than there was little talk of anything else in 
the Land Girls’ camp. 

The questions of the hour were who would sing ; 
what they’d sing; what refreshments would be offered; 
which of the boys was going to make the best “ girl,” 
varied with which of us girls could dress up as the 
best “ boy ” — given, unanimously, for “ Mop,” as they 
called Elizabeth. 

These things were discussed in twenty voices be- 
fore the farm-girls and the timber-gang set out for 
work in the morning, and after they returned in the 
evening. 

A further burning question was whether we went in 
uniform or in our civies? 

At last Miss Easton, the young forewoman, ex- 
claimed in mock despair: 

“ I shall feel as if I’d been to the blessed concert 
ten times over at this rate, before ever it happens! 
When it does come off it’ll fall as flat as a committee 
report. Whatever did they want to send out the in- 
vitations all these days ahead for? ’Tisn’t as if we’d 
so many engagements in this ” — she gazed out of the 
hut window at the pastoral scene of lambs taking their 
evening scamper round and round a daisied meadow — 
“ in this crowded Metropolis that we had to be booked 
in advance.” 

Peggy returned demurely: 

“ Ah, Miss Easton, dear, that’s all you know. Some 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


114 ? 

of ’em at the hospital made up their minds to let all us 
at the camp know in time, so that nobody should go 
off on short leave to see their people or anything, by 
mistake, on the 10th! ” 

Here Vic sighed stormily, rolled up her eyes in mock 
emotion, and remarked: 

“ What it is to be in love ! ” 

The usual laugh went round as at the least of Vic’s 
utterances. Then the talk turned upon the love-af- 
fairs of the Campites present. We were given the 
probable date of Peggy’s wedding with her Syd in the 
autumn. We were told of the disgraceful fickleness of 
Curley, the straight-haired brunette, who had been en- 
gaged to a young gentleman in the Tank Corps, who 
had shown her photograph to a friend of his, who had 
taken an enormous fancy to it, and had written to 
Curley who had broken off the engagement with her 
first love, and who had been walking out, by letter, 
with the friend ever since. 

66 I’m astonished at her,” Peggy said severely. 

" What’s the good of being astonished at anything 
in war-time ? ” retorted Curley. “ And what’s the 
good of going on writing to a fellow when you are 
sick and tired of the sight of him before ever he goes 
to France? Better sense to break it off in time, and 
see if you like the next one better when he comes 
home ! ” 

General agreement over this — except from the 
red-haired Welsh timber-girl who declared in her rich- 
est contralto: 


AN INVITATION 


115 


“ That wasn’t love, then, for if you loved a man, 
it would be for ever ! ” 

A diversity of opinions upon this, ending in a gale 
of laughter as Miss Easton reminded the red-haired 
one: 

44 Well, Aggie! You used to say in the woods that 
the birds seemed to call aloud the name of the boy 
one cared for! And in March you said they sang 
4 Dick ! Deeck ! ’ And the other day you said they 
were singing 4 Hugh-ie ! Hugh-ie ! ’ ” 

Aggie, blushing down her milky, freckled throat, re- 
torted with some allusion to some people 44 getting off 
with some fat, old, rich timber-merchant, after the 
war ! ” To which the young forewoman replied good- 
naturedly that she didn’t mind at all the idea, of set- 
tling down with some nice, kind, elderly sort of man! 

After the war, and all she’d had to do for twenty 
odd girls — seeing after every detail of their health, 
behaviour, outfit, railway vouchers, billets, stripes, 
rows with landladies, tests, and leaves — she would 
be glad enough to come in for a bit of 44 mothering ” 
herself. 

46 Which,” she concluded quaintly, 44 a girl gets best 
from a husband who isn’t too young! ” 

Chorus of — 

44 Ah, bah ! An old husband would be awful ! ” 

And then Sybil, who had never travelled without 
a maid before the war, declared that after the war the 
best husbands for the girls who had been in the Land 
Army would be the Colonials, the Overseas men. 


116 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


These splendid-looking outdoor fellows could offer a 
girl the life — with plenty of hard work rewarded by 
open-air freedom, and health, and fun — which she had 
learnt to love. 

Hot argument here, following a demand from Lil 
the Londoner of — 

“ What’s the matter with our own boys ? ” 

Everybody had a word to say on this perennial 
poignant question of young men and marriage. 

I rather dreaded being asked what my views were. 
Silently I sat, going on with my work ; which was short- 
ening Elizabeth’s second smock for her. The things 
are made in three sizes only, and the smallest of them 
was just a trifle voluminous, and long for the little 
boyish figure of my chum. As I stitched away at the 
tuck I was taking in it, I wondered when my turn was 
coming. 

It didn’t come. 

None of the other girls asked me if I would like to 
marry a dark man or a fair one, a Colonial or a 
Britisher. 

Then I wondered a little at that. Afterwards, long 
afterwards, I learnt the rather touching fact that Vic 
had forbidden the lot of them to tease “ young Celery- 
face ” about any young men. . . . Vic had tumbled to 
it that, honestly, I didn’t like it. And Vic had a good 
deal of fine feeling, tucked away, upon this subject. 

Vic’s own love-affair (her “ boy ” had died in enemy 
hands, I afterwards heard) had made her sensitive for 
others. 


AN INVITATION 


117 


So, as Elizabeth had gone shopping in the tiny vil- 
lage known to our mess as “ the town,” I was left to a 
peaceful Saturday afternoon. 

It was on the Monday after that that a queer thing 
happened to me. 


CHAPTER XIV 


THE HEN-WIFE 

“ When I was a farmer, a farmer’s boy, I used to keep my 
master’s chickens . . — Nursery Song. 

A T the close of a day largely devoted to the task 
concerning Blossom, the cart, and the man- 
golds, I came up to the farmhouse to get their 
second feed for Mrs. Price’s chickens. Of these she 
had eighty, and I know she set great store by them. 
She well might! The hens, I heard, cost ten shillings 
each; one speckled grey cockerel was a guinea! 

Some of the hens with their brood clucked about 
that midden in the yard to which I’d added by several 
barrow-loads ; the rest were in a field that sloped quite 
steeply up the hill. I had fed the first lot in the yard ; 
I had ascended the hill to the field with the coops dotted 
about it, and I had shut a brood of restless, fluffy, 
44 peep ”-ing chicks into the coop for them to feed un- 
disturbed by their marauding grown-ups, when sud- 
denly there brushed against my leggings the fluffy 
white-and-golden coat of Captain Holiday’s collie. 

44 Tock, tock, tock ! ” called the hens about me. 
And, above me, I heard the captain’s 44 Good after- 
noon.” 

I rose, straightened myself from putting down the 
wire door of that coop, and turned to face him. 

118 


THE HEN-WIFE 


119 


A little shock of surprise met me with the sight 
of him. He was — different. What had he done to 
himself? I wondered in a flash — in the same flash 
I realized that it was merely his clothes. 

For the first time since I’d met him Captain Holi- 
day had changed out of his accustomed khaki. He 
was wearing tweeds. A hat that might have done duty 
on a scarecrow, with a fishing-cast about it, shaded his 
eyes from the late afternoon sun. His Norfolk jacket 
was a shaggy, grey-green disgrace to a gipsy’s ward- 
robe . . . but it suited him quite well. I wondered 
why he had never worn these things before. 

After this I found myself thinking that I must have 
seen him in tweeds before now. 

Wasn’t his figure somehow very familiar But no. 

How could that be? 

“ Good afternoon,” I replied to him in the tone that 
may be translated, “What do you want now?” 

As if in answer, he held out to me the tin pail that 
he was carrying. With his sweetest smile he barked 
out, “ Rotten careless hen-wife you’d make ! I had to 
bring this along to save Mrs. Price a journey. You 
forgot the milk to put in the chicks’ tins.” 

“ Did I ! ” I exclaimed, disconcerted. “ That was 
stupid of me ! ” 

“ It was,” retorted Captain Holiday, still with the 
smile that might have accompanied the prettiest com- 
pliment. Characteristic ! 

I scarcely looked at him, hoping that he’d go. 

He did not. He seemed to expect me to have some- 


120 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


thing to say to him — at all events, he stayed while I 
filled up those milk pannikins, and followed me round 
to the other coops. 

I said, looking away from him, and with would-be 
irony : 

44 You seem as interested in poultry as in the rest 
of farming.” 

44 Yes,” he agreed. 44 I’ve always been interested in 
pottering about with stock of any kind. Always the 
job I fancied; 4 always my delight,’ as they say here; 

so ” He broke off. 44 What are you looking at? ” 

he asked abruptly. 44 A penny for your thoughts.” 

I was looking up beyond the tall, slight figure set 
against the background of slanting field and stone 
hedge cutting a purply-grey sky. That part of Mr. 
Price’s farm reminded me of a bit of the old place at 
home. 

How typically Welsh were the hilly green and the 
grey stones, and the rich shifting colours of the cloudy 
distance! These brought back to me my Welsh-set 
childhood. 

******* 

Days of wandering the marshes, waist-deep in 
meadow-sweet and bog myrtle, dreaming the long, long 
dreams of little girlhood! Days of sitting curled up 
like a squirrel in the school-room armchair while the 
rain lashed the panes and all the world of Every-day 
was blotted out as I pored over Shakespere, or 44 Called 
Back ” or 44 The Last Days of Pompeii ” or 44 Three 
Men in a Boat ” — ah, the omnivorous and profoundly 


THE HEN-WIFE 


m 


satisfying reading of the early teens ! Meals that to a 
growing girl were banquets of Welsh mutton and jam 
roly-poly . . . tea-parties that were events . . . jokes 
that brought laughter that brought tears to stream 
down the cheeks convulsed . . . quick fierce likes and 
dislikes . . . shames . . . delights — ah, over all, de- 
light! Zest in the newness of Life! How many of 
these things had I left behind in those days-gone-by ! 

With a breath of the old wild mountain air, fresh 
and bewildering, bringing unreasoned tears to the eyes, 
those days were back, for that moment I felt the thick 
brown pigtail weigh upon my neck as I bent my face 
down to the face of the whimpering fox terrier pup 
in my arms. That pup had been given to me by one 
of my father’s farm pupils seven years ago. I was 
back in that time. 

Into my day dream broke a voice that seemed, for- 
a second, part of it, 

“ A penny for your thoughts ! ” 

****** * 

With a start I palled myself together, glancing now 
straight at the young man. How strange — yet how 
well known to me, he seemed ! Why ? The thought 
persisted ; why ? Of what did he remind me so elusively 
at this moment? 

Then an extraordinary thing happened. 

I do not know how it was that I said what I did — 
those five quite unpremeditated words. My voice 
sounded odd in my own ears as I spoke. Yet it was 
quite in a normal matter-of-fact voice that I did speak. 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


122 

Standing there on the hill slope where the black and 
the grey speckled poultry clucked about our feet, I 
looked up at the young man again and asked him this 
question : 

“ Isn’t your name Richard Wynn? ” 


CHAPTER XV 


MOSTLY CONVERSATION 
“ To talk of Love is soon to make Love.”— Pboverb. 


A FTER this strange question of mine, there was 
a moment’s pause. 

It rang in my ears still, my quick, but 
quietly uttered, — 

“Isn’t your name Richard Wynn?” 

What on earth had possessed mC to say that? The 
moment after I was as surprised at it as he was him- 
self. Or wasn’t he surprised? His face had hardly 
changed. He looked quite steadily back at me. 
What did he think? I wondered in a flash. What 
would he say? 

Quite quietly he replied: 

fi< No, no, it isn’t. Surely you know my name’s 


Holiday? ” 

As if I hadn’t ever heard it ! How absurd I’d been ! 
How idiotic ! How wool-gathering ! 

I pulled myself together. 

“ Oh, I know,” I said quickly and apologetically, as 
I caught up a handful of the poultry-food. “ Yes. 
Of course, I know that.” 

“ Then,” returned Captain Holiday, “ why did you 
ask me if my name was Richard Wynn? ” 

I laughed a little. 

“ It was a silly question,” I admitted. “ It must 
123 


124 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


have sounded quite mad! Only for one minute, seeing 
you in these clothes, I suppose ” 

He looked swiftly down at the shaggy cuff of that 
quite disreputable Norfolk jacket. “ Seeing me in 
these clothes ; yes ? ” 

“ Tock, tock, tock,” put in the grey hen. 

“ Well, you suddenly reminded me of somebody I 
used to know,” said I, and I turned to scatter that 
handful to those clucking, calling fowls. 

Captain Holiday — whose name ought to have been 
Curiosity — put his hands behind his back, and tilted 
his head to one side, taking almost the pose of a small 
boy who is still at the deadly age of questions. Evi- 
dently this tall young man had never outgrown it! 
How simply, but in what a not-to-be-put-off voice he 
persisted : 

“ What was this * somebody ’ like? ” 

“ I’ve just said he was something like you, Captain 
Holiday. That is,” I added, “ I couldn’t really tell 
you if he w T ere or not.” 

“ What d’you mean by that?” Captain Holiday 
asked. 

I laughed again. One simply could not feel im- 
patient or annoyed with this extraordinarily inquisi- 
tive young man. He took one past that! So, as I 
walked on with my pail to the next coop, followed by 
the young man and the dog, I said : 

“ What I mean — if you must know all about it ” 

“ Yes, I must. I mean I’d love to.” 

Well! “knowing all about it” must be a sort of 


MOSTLY CONVERSATION 


125 


mild obsession of his. Perhaps he’d been Intelligence 
Officer or something. The only thing to be done ap- 
peared to be to humour him! 

So I said: 

“ What I mean about that young man called Rich- 
ard Wynn, your double, is that I can’t honestly say I 
know what he was like ! ” 

“Why can’t you?” barked the catechist. 

“ Because I don’t remember.” 

“You don’t remember?” quite sharply from Cap- 
tain Holiday. “How, don’t remember? Why don’t 
you ? ” 

“ Because it’s such ages ago since I saw him,” I 
replied. “ Seven years ! And what is the next ques- 
tion, please? ” 

The next question was a brusque 

“ How often had you seen him, then? ” 

“Often? Why, I saw him every day,” I replied, 
going down on one knickerbockered knee to wrestle 
with the refractory door of a coop. “ He stayed at 
my father’s place for six months.” 

The voice above me decreed: 

“ Then, of course, you must know what the fellow 
was like.” 

Extraordinary, the constant interest he took in sub- 
jects which had absolutely nothing to do with him! 
But I’d said a man was like himself. That was next 
door to talking about what he was like himself — 
which Elizabeth had declared was all young men ever 
did want to talk about! 


126 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


44 1 don’t know,” I persisted, rattling the wire-netted 
door. 44 I’ve forgotten Mr. Wynn’s face.” 

44 You can’t have 4 forgotten ’ the face of a man 
you saw every day of your life for six months,” Cap- 
tain Holiday informed me, authoritatively. 44 You 
must have been what? Thirteen or fourteen. No girl 
4 forgets 5 a man’s face like that ! ” 

44 She does ! ” I declared. 

44 People don’t 4 forget ’ faces,” he repeated. 44 It’s 
nonsense.” 

44 It is not,” I cried, half-laughing, half-exasperated, 
as I rose. 44 People do forget what they’ve never 
taken very much notice of, even when it was there l 
I’ve no memory at all for faces. I only know what I 
thought of them at the time.” 

I thought his next question would be, 44 What did 
you think of the young man you imagine was like me? ” 
But this was not what came. He demanded, more cas- 
ually. 44 And what became of him ? ” 

44 1 don’t know,” I replied. 44 1 never heard. Ex- 
cept ” Here I suppressed a half-rueful smile at 

the thought of what I had heard, only some weeks ago, 
from this same long-forgotten Richard Wynn. 

44 Except what?” took up the Inquisitor. 

I sighed elaborately. For a moment I felt almost 
inclined to tell him deliberately the whole madcap story 
of Richard Wynn’s proposal of marriage to me; but 
for some reason I didn’t. 

So, looking straight at him, I adopted a tone of 


MOSTLY CONVERSATION 


127 


studied and explanatory politeness. I hoped this 
gentle irony might have the effect of making him a 
little bit ashamed of all his questions. 

“ I only heard from this Mr. Wynn once,” I said. 
66 Then he did not tell me what he was doing, or what 
had happened to him all these years. So I can’t tell 
you. And I could not write to him, or ask him about 
anything, because I’d thrown away his letter.” 

“ Thrown it away ? ” Captain Holiday exclaimed, 
quite loudly. 

" I threw it away by mistake — with the address. 
So that was that — and I’m sorry, but I’m afraid 
that’s absolutely all I can tell you about him, Captain 
Holiday!” 

I scattered my last handful, let the last replete and 
peeping chick out of the last coop. Captain Holi- 
day — perhaps feeling a trifle rebuked — said nothing 
further. Swinging my empty pail I ran down the hill- 
side. He and his dog followed me through the farm 
gate and went on. 

At the door of the kitchen I handed in my pail. 
The rosy farm-servant said to me: 

“ Miss, you’ll have to run if you want to catch up 
your friends. They’ve been gone some time.” 

I glanced up at the clock. 

“ Is it so late, Maggie-Mary ! ” I exclaimed. 

I sped through the yard and on to the up-and-down 
high road, thinking as I went the question that almost 
every Land Girl asks herself at some time : 


128 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


44 How did I ever manage to walk at any pace at 
all in the days when I wore hampering skirts to flap 
about me wherever I turned? ” 

Before I could find an answer to this question I 
found Captain Holiday at my side again! 

44 Let me walk along a bit of the way with you,” 
he suggested quite nicely. 44 May I? ” 

What could I say but 44 If you like”? My way 
back to camp did take him past the Lodge, after all. 

However, I didn’t want another Longer Catechism. 
So, as we fell into step, walking towards the sunset, 
down the road with basking green on either hand, I 
decided to introduce the subject of the forthcoming 
and much-discussed Hospital Concert! 

But I was not in time. It was Captain Holiday 
who started the conversation, and on lines that I 
hardly expected, but beginning, once again, with one 
of his questions ! 

44 Is that little pal of yours engaged to be married? ” 

Surprised, I replied: 

44 Elizabeth? Miss Weare? To be married? I 
should think not ! I mean, I don’t think she ever means 
to marry.” 

44 That’s good,” remarked Captain Holiday, cheer- 
fully. 

I stared at him. 

44 4 Good’? Why good?” 

He said 44 Oh ! ” and fumbled in the pocket of his 
Norfolk for his pipe. 

44 Oh, perhaps I meant she’d be all the more com- 


MOSTLY CONVERSATION 


129 


pany for you down here. People in love are poison- 
ously poor company, I find ! ” he went on, turning to 
me as if with a burst of confidence. Then he twinkled, 
gave me a swift glance, opened his lips as if to ask a 
question ; shut them. 

I knew what he meant. 

Quickly and definitely I snapped out the answer to 
the question he hadn’t asked. 

“ No ! I’m not engaged either ! ” I said. Then, 
carrying this war of questions into the odd creature’s 
country, I added, “ Are you? ” 

“Why? I suppose you mean you find me poison- 
ously poor company? ” he asked, with a defiant jerk 
of the head in that scarecrow’s tweed hat of his. 

“Not at all,” I said politely. “But are you?” 

Instead of answering he stopped and glanced to the 
right. There was a break in the hedge. 

“ Shall we take this short cut home through the 
fields?” he said. 

I followed him to the narrow, greasy path, if it 
were a path. 

It seemed to me one of those short cuts home that 
are certainly the longest way round! . . . How could 
I — oh, how could I not have realized already that all 
I wanted was to be walking anywhere — for any dis- 
tance — with him! 

That realization was not to come yet. . . . 

But to go back to the beginning of this ramble, 
Captain Holiday, striding and smoking beside me, 
said : 


130 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


“Am I engaged? Well, I say! May I tell yoq 
something about myself? ” 

“ That would be a change ! Generally, you want 
to be told things about other people ! ” I said. 

He gave a short laugh. 

“ Yes ; well, now you can have a bit of your own 
back. I want a woman’s point of view on a certain 
matter. You’re sure it won’t bore you? I don’t 
mind if it does,” he added quickly, with that quicker 
smile that always brushed any offence out of his words. 
“ Women are put here to listen to men’s grousing. 
However! Seriously, I want to talk to you. You 
could help me about this.” 

“I? Help you?” I said. “ D’you mean it?” 
But I knew he meant it. Sincerity was in his tone. 
Also a new note — appeal. 

I could not help feeling pleased. He did not think me 
a fool then, even if he had seen me first in circumstances 
that might have given him that impression. He thought 
that I could help him in his own difficulty, whatever it 
was. 

This was where I suddenly found I must have skipped 
whole stages in my acquaintanceship with this young 
man. He had jumped from being a busybody and a 
stranger to being a friend — yes ! A friend to whom 
one felt positively motherly — or at least sisterly. 

I turned to him as we walked, and said: 

“ Of course I’d be glad to advise you in any way that 
would be of any use to you. You tell me first.” 

66 Righto ! ” said Captain Holiday. “ By Jove, here’s 


MOSTLY CONVERSATION 


1S1 


some more of this wire. Never mind. We’ll turn off 
here — I think I struck the wrong field. Well! You 
were asking me if I were engaged. I am not. I asked 
a girl to marry me, though, not so long ago.” 

He stopped. I said, sympathetically: 

“ Oh, I’m sorry.” 

“ Are you ? Why ? ” 

I couldn’t help opening my eyes. 

“Why? I mean — sorry she turned you down.” 

Now Captain Holiday opened his eyes. 

“ Who said she turned me down? ” he asked. 

In spite of how he improved upon acquaintance, in 
spite of his friendliness, his nice smile and ways, he was 
very difficult to make out. 

“ You said the girl wouldn’t be engaged to you ” 

I began patiently. 

“ I said nothing of the kind,” Captain Holiday in- 
terrupted, contradicting me flatly. “ I told you I was 
not engaged — here, it must have been that other turn- 
ing after all, we’ll go back — not engaged, but that I 
had asked a girl to marry me.” 

More at sea than before, I retraced my steps down the 
path beside him, and suggested: 

“ Then, if the girl said 4 Yes ’ to you ” 

“ She,” explained Captain Holiday, looking serenely 
over the evening landscape, 44 did not say either 4 Yes ’ 
or 4 No.’ ” 

Now I saw his difficulty! 

Suspense ! 

Yes. I understood that. How I understood the 


132 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


chills — and flames — of that fever ! Hadn’t I suf- 
fered from them myself, in the days when I had had to 
think in turn. “ He will,” “ He won’t,” or 44 Will he? ” 

44 That’s horrible for you,” I agreed warmly to this 
other young man. 44 It’s bad enough to know the worst. 
But not to know which it’s to be is ” 

44 Quite so,” finished Captain Holiday. 

44 Still, you needn’t make up your mind at once that 
it will be the worst, need you? ” I went on soothingly. 

44 You think I needn’t? ” 

44 Why d’you feel you must give up all hope ? ” I 
asked. 

44 Sometimes I don’t,” he admitted simply. 

I nodded, saying: 

44 It’s the other 4 sometimes ’ that’s so awful.” 

44 Exactly,” he said. 44 When I think 4 after all, why 
should any girl like me particularly ? ’ ” 

44 You don’t often think that, do you? ” 

44 No, not often,” said Captain Holiday serenely 
again, 44 only occasionally when I’ve had a bad night 
and feel off colour and pippy ! ” 

I couldn’t help laughing. The sustaining, intoxi- 
cating conceit of men ! As Elizabeth says, it’s the only 
thing that could keep them going since the war re- 
strictions ! 

Then he looked quickly sideways at me. 

44 You think that’s neck,” he remarked. 44 Perhaps 
you think there is no reason why any girl should like 
me? ” 

And for the moment his voice dropped a tone, and 


MOSTLY CONVERSATION 


133 


there was a wistfulness on his brown face. I stopped 
laughing. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings in any 
way. Besides, when one came to think of it, he was 
quite nice enough for a girl to like him — quite much ! 

Thoughtfully I said : — 

“ So much depends upon the kind of girl ! ” and then 
I asked, (( What kind of girl is she? ” in a tone as gentle 
as I could make it, so as to avoid jarring him. 

But in quite a matter-of-fact, usual sort of tone 
the young man replied : 

“ Oh, well ! She’s the girl I want.” 

Helpful, wasn’t it? 

“ I see,” said I, not seeing anything, of course, ex- 
cept that, as Elizabeth once said, it’s quite impossible 
to get a man to describe anything or anybody so that 
you know what they are like. 

We walked on for a moment in silence, following our 
shadows on the goldy-green grass ; evening shadows that 
caricatured a giant soldier man striding across the field 
beside a giantess of a Land Girl. 

I began again: 

“ She might be the type of girl who honestly did not 
know herself whether it was 4 Yes ’ or 4 No ’ that she 
wanted to say,” I said. “ Some girls simply have to 
take lots of time to consider whether they care for the 
man in that way or not — even after he’s asked them ! 
They have to think things over. They have to look 
at the man from ever^v point of view before they know 
their own minds about him. I’ve met that type of 
girl. I can’t say I understand her mys ” 


134 A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


44 Ah,” he put in with a quick turn of the head, 44 you 
wouldn’t be like that ! You’d know at once if you could 
stand the man? ” 

44 1 think so,” I said, a little shortly. I didn’t want 
to be reminded of what my own views had been about 
44 the man ” — that is, Harry. They had led me into 
making a fool of myself. Hadn’t I liked him at once, 
disastrously, from his first soft dark-eyed glances at 
me? What I was 44 like,” myself, was not the question. 
Also I didn’t see how it was going to help Captain Holi- 
day. 

He, on the other hand, seemed to think it might 
throw some light upon the subject. 

44 You’d know at once if it was all N. G. as far as your 
own feelings were concerned? ” he persisted. 

44 At once,” I agreed. 

44 That would save the other person a lot of trouble, 
of course,” said the young man at my side. 44 1 think 
you’re right. One ought to 4 know ’ at once, about that 
sort of thing. You would, you say? ” 

44 Yes, I should. But there are such lots of different 
kinds of girls, Captain Holiday ” 

44 Of course, I don’t see that.” 

44 No. Because you’re in love, you see, and people 
never do see more than just the one person then.” 

44 1 expect you’re right again,” said Captain Holi- 
day. He looked down at me quite submissively — at 
me, to whom he’d laid down the law in that hec- 
toring fashion every time he’d seen me! He might be 
right about cow-houses and the laws of gravity and 


MOSTLY CONVERSATION 


135 


about stock, as well as about any question in his own 
profession of soldiering — but at least he saw now that 
I could teach him something about the ways of human 
beings ! 

And I felt no longer a Land Girl who was still months 
away from earning her first stripe, but quite a woman 
of the world for once ! 

Encouragingly I went on: 

44 Perhaps she is the kind of girl who does mean 4 Yes 9 
all the time ” 

“ And didn’t say so? ” 

“ Because perhaps she put it off to make it seem all 
the more wonderful to you when it came,” I suggested. 

44 Ah,” he said. “It would be wonderful then?” 

How little he must know about love, I thought, to ask 
such a question. 

44 Wonderful? ” I said, looking away from him across 
to the sunset. In the radiance of the level rays a 
swarm of tiny insects spun enraptured — each think- 
ing, possibly, that the sun had risen and shone only for 
him and his little winged love, creatures of a day. 

44 One five minutes of that,” I said, as much to myself 
as to him, 44 is worth having lived for twenty stodgy 
years without it. Even if you lose it again it would 
have been worth it ! ” 

44 You think so? ” 

44 Yes ! And I do hope that it \yill happen like that 
for you,” I told him. 44 1 don’t mean the losing it again 
part. I do hope that you will get everything that you 
want.” 


136 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


“ Yes, so do I,” said Captain Holiday, in that rather 
disconcerting way of his. “ But, look here — you seem 
to be able to tell one so much — supposing it were 
neither of those two things that you suggest that kept 
the girl from answering, as I want her to ? What about 
that? ” 

“ Couldn’t you,” I suggested, “ ask her again some 
time ? ” 

He fingered his small, obstinately-growing moustache. 

“ That’s an idea. Yes. Well! Thanks very much. 
I’ll think about what you’ve said, Joan.” 

Joan ! 

“ By the way, I have decided to call you by your 
Christian name.” 

“ Oh ! Er — yes,” I agreed, staggered, but feeling 
that I could not refuse this proof of goodwill to a young 
man who had just made me the confidante of so much. 
“ H — How did you know it ? ” 

“ Doesn’t your little pal call you by it ? Mine’s Dick, 
you know.” 

I nodded, not feeling I could use it just yet. If he’d 
been as abrupt in his love-making as he was in his mak- 
ing friends, there was some excuse, thought I, for the 
young woman who kept him waiting for his answer. 

Then, with equal brightness, he changed the subject 
altogether. 

“ D’you know that I’m having a house-party at the 
Lodge next week ? For the concert — yes. Y ou’ve seen 
my wounded pal, haven’t you? Then I’ve got a girl 
from London and her mother coming down to stay.” 


MOSTLY CONVERSATION 


137 


“ A girl — oh ! have you? ” 

And then I could not help it. The question slipped 
out, as it were, of its own accord. 

“ Captain Holiday, is she 4 the ’ girl ? 99 

But the exasperating man wouldn’t give me a direct 
answer. 

“ The girl,” he said with a laugh. 44 Ah, well, I sup- 
pose most girls have got somebody who’d consider they 
were 4 the 9 girl.” 

44 Yes, yes ; but I mean is she the girl you’ve been 
talking to me about all this time ? 99 

Again he only laughed, and said something chaffing 
about 44 curiosity.” 

Curiosity indeed ! From him ! Pretty good, wasn’t 
it? And not another sensible word could I get out of 
Captain Holiday for the rest of the walk. 

When we did finally reach the field, however, from 
which we could see the corrugated iron roof of our hut 
set in the trees, he did vouchsafe to me one more remark 
about the girl who was shortly coming down from Lon- 
don. Just after his salute and 44 good evening,” he 
turned back to me to say : 

44 I’ll tell you this much : she happens to be my own 
first cousin.” 

However, he’d said enough — or left enough unsaid. 
I knew well enough that, cousin or no cousin, she was 
the girl about whom there’d been all that discussion. 


CHAPTER XVI 


CURIOUS CONDUCT OF THE MAN-HATER 

“To maidens’ vows and swearing 
Henceforth no credit give.” 

— George Wither. 


I RAN back to the hut. 

So late! I found the tea-supper all cleared 
away, and most of the Campites dispersed about 
their evening avocations. 

Only Elizabeth the trusty had kept back for me milk, 
a huge plateful of bread-and-butter, and cold bacon. 

I expected that Elizabeth would sit down near me 
while I devoured my meal, and would spice it with com- 
ments on the reason for my lateness. Here I had 
reckoned without my hostess. Not only did she not 
have a word to say about my having walked — or 
loitered — home with a young man ; but she hadn’t, 
apparently, got a word to say to me about anything, 
though we had hardly seen each other all day ! 

In an abstracted way she glanced at the food disap- 
pearing from before me, murmuring absently : 

“Mustard? Or don’t you take it?” Then, look- 
ing at the clock said : “ Slow, I’m sure.” And then, 

with a curious look on her small face, she left me and 
strayed forth into the gloaming outside the hut. 

I finished my meal, cleared it away, and went out 
138 


CURIOUS CONDUCT 


139 


to find her. No sign of Elizabeth in the field that led 
down to the bathing-pool. I crossed the tiny bridge 
over the stream, and wandered intc the next field. 

Here, through the branches of some hazels growing 
beside a stone fence, I caught sight of the gleam of a 
light overall. I went up to it. I found Elizabeth in 
a nook where it was almost dark under the branches. 

“ Hullo ! 99 I greeted her. “ So this is where you’ve 
hidden } 7 ourself away, is it ? ” 

Elizabeth, turning, gave a violent start. “ Hullo,” 
she said, in what I can only describe as a most unwel- 
coming tone. To me, her inseparable chum! 

I let myself down on a boulder close to her. 

“Elizabeth, old thing, what’s the matter? Have 
you got a headache? 99 I said. 

“ Headache ! 99 echoed Elizabeth quite pettishly. 
“ You know I never have headaches.” 

“ I thought perhaps you were a little tired.” 

“Tired! Not in the very least, thanks.” My 
chum’s tone was discouraging. 

I tried again. 

“ Look here, my dear, are you stuffy with me about 
anything? Did I rag you too much about getting 
tamed by Hackenschmidt the Second, or ” 

“ Stuffy? 99 choed the little Man-hater, her tone get- 
ting snappier and snappier. “ If I were, Joan, I’d tell 
you.” 

“ Yes ; I should have thought so,” said I, feeling per- 
fectly convinced that something was up. “For you 
know that if there’s anything I could do for you ” 


140 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


Here Elizabeth quite took my breath away by the sud- 
denness with which she spoke. 

“ There is something you can do,” she blurted out 
through the gloom. “ You can just go away, if you 
don’t mind, and leave me alone.” 

I’d only just breath left to say flatly: 

“ Oh, righto,” and to get up and set off back to the 
hut. 

Elizabeth wanted me to leave her alone! What on 
earth was the meaning of that? 

“ To be left alone ” — with most girls that means 
that they have fallen in love and want to pick them- 
selves up before they can assess the damage. 

But with Elizabeth? With that genuine Loather of 
Men? 

Never — ! 

With most girls, to say u I dislike men ” means one 
of perhaps six things. 

1. They don’t know any men. 

2. No men have been known to pay any attention to 
them. 

3. Some man has treated them very badly. 

4. They wish to be contradicted and teased. 

5. They are fibbing for the sake of fibbing. 

With Elizabeth not one of these reasons would hold 
for a second. 

But Elizabeth in love! Reason positively shouted 
an “ Oh, no.” . . . 

Yet a mad little suspicion, whispering within me, 
seemed to defy that voice of reason. As I walked along 


CURIOUS CONDUCT 


141 


in the fast-gathering gloom I remembered I had seen 
a man look at Elizabeth quite lately. More lately still 
I had seen Elizabeth most uncharacteristically confused 
at the mention of that man’s name. 

Wildly improbable, I told myself. And, as I did so 
I walked straight into the meaning for Elizabeth’s want- 
ing to be left to herself just then. 

In fact, I bumped into the young man, who was com- 
ing along the path. 

“ Oh, sorry,” said a low-pitched, masculine voice that 
I had heard before. A hand was put up to a cap. 
Then the figure which I had run against passed quickly 
on up the field. 

Elizabeth’s “ old ” Colonel ! She was meeting him 
out there! 

Him 9 

There are no words to describe my condition of pole- 
axed astonishment at this. . . . Why try to find any? 

( Elizabeth !) 

In about half an hour she returned to the hut, where 
the others were turning up again by twos and threes. 

Elizabeth, looking about two inches taller than usual, 
gave a defensive glare round the groups of smiling and 
gossiping girls. But none of them had seen her except 
me. The defensive glare was then focussed upon me. 

I hadn’t meant to say a word to the girl! I really 
hadn’t ! 

I suppose nobody feels exactly chatty when they’ve 
just fallen out of a balloon? 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


142 

But Elizabeth, evidently wishful to speak, followed 
me up to the mattresses when I went to unroll mine for 
the night. 

44 Joan ! Er — he told me he met you ! ” 

44 Oh, yes ! ” I said, in a voice as ordinary as possible. 
I didn’t want her to think I was going to 44 rag,” or 
make any sort of fuss about this. Why shouldn’t Eliza- 
beth go out for an evening stroll with a young man if 
she wanted to — just like any other girl on the land or 
anywhere else? 

44 He knows some of my people,” Elizabeth flung back 
in that defensive mutter, 44 and he wanted to talk to me 
about another tenant for the flat in London, and, as 
well as that, he’s got a mother who’s got a friend who’s 
got a daughter who’s thinking of joining up for the 
Land Army. So, you see, he wanted to — talk to me.” 

44 Yes, I quite see,” said I. 

Three excuses for talking, from a young man whom 
she only called 44 He ”! 

44 So he wrote to me. I promised I’d see him for a 
minute after tea tonight.” 

44 Oh, yes. When did you promise that?” slipped 
from me before I knew. 

Elizabeth gave her mattress a little kick as she lugged 
it out. 

44 1 met him on the road the other day,” she said in 
the tone of one who shakes a fist at the world — what 
it is to have to live up to the name of Man-hater ! — and 
added: 44 You needn’t think there’s any nonsense of that 
sort about it ! ” 


CURIOUS CONDUCT 


US 


“ I never said there was,” mildly from me. 

“ You’re always ready to think it ! ” tigerishly from 
her. “ So I thought I’d just tell you, to stop your get- 
ting any wrong impression ! ” 

“ Righto ! ” said I, pacifically. “ I won’t think any- 
thing about it, old thing.” 

Elizabeth gave a queer little sigh — was it of grati- 
tude ? — as she spread her blankets. 

Whether she was just annoyed at the possibility of 
my thinking she had taken a fancy to a mere man who 
admired her, or whether she really had begun to take a 
fancy — well, I gave it up as I settled down to my 
well-earned rest. 

I’d said I wouldn’t think any more about it. As a 
matter of fact I was too stunned by the extraordinary 
possibilities of the subject. I left it. I turned to the 
thought of Captain Holiday’s other guest for that con- 
cert, that girl from town who was coming to stay with 
her mother at the Lodge. 

I found myself wondering over her again during the 
few minutes that elapsed between my curling up on my 
mattress and my losing consciousness of that and every 
other question. 

It was all very well for that young man to announce 
so succinctly, “ She’s just the girl I want.” What did 
he think that would convey to me P She would be rather 
lucky, as luck goes, to have any one so nice and amusing 
in love with her. But what sort of a girl would a man 
like that want? 

Absolutely no frills about her, I decided. She would 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


144s 

be extraordinarily practical and efficient; very out of 
doorish ; good-looking, but not pretty in any “ doll-y ” 
sort of way ; thorough sportswoman — only, why hadn’t 
she wanted to say either (( yes ” or “ no ” to him? 
Why not “ yes ” at once? Why not 

Here a curious little incident wound up a day of curi- 
ous incidents. I had, whilst engaged in these medita- 
tions, been tucking my wrist watch under the rolled-up 
scarf that was my only pillow. My hand met a hand- 
kerchief that I had forgotten was there. As I took 
hold of the thing I felt a knot that was tied tightly in 
the corner of it. 

A knot to remind me of something. 

Now what was that, and when had I tied it? 

Suddenly I remembered. 

Elizabeth had tied that knot in my green silk hand- 
kerchief days and days ago. And she’d said : “ That’s 

to remind you to think mournfully of Harry at least 
once a day.” 

I’d forgotten that. More than that, I’d forgotten 
Harry for the moment — or for how long? Had it 
really been days since I had given a thought to those 
bitter-sweet memories of the man who used to blot out 
every other interest from my horizon? Had the land- 
work cure progressed so rapidly that other interests 
were beginning to keep all remembrance of Harry in the 
background? 

I looked back to the obsession that had been the in- 
direct cause of sending me — a love-sick wreck ! — on 
to the land. 


CURIOUS CONDUCT 


145 


And now — was it possible that I’d got over it so 
well? 

In ruefulness, relief, and surprise I drew a deep 
breath. Then I turned over and slept. 

But I never dreamt of what else was coming to re- 
mind me of Harry — and very shortly ! 


CHAPTER XVII 


LAND-GIRLS GO SHOPPING 

“ Quand on n’a pas ce qu’on aime, il faut aimer ce qu’on a.” 

— French Philosopher. 

A FEW days after I had been wondering what 
Captain Holiday’s “ the ” girl would be like, 
my curiosity was gratified. 

I met her l 

This was how it occurred : 

I was out in “ the town ” shopping — fascinating 
occupation — don’t any woman’s eyes brighten at its 
name? 

Yes. . . . But the chances are ten to one against 
her knowing anything about the Careg Land Girl’s 
Camp version of the function. 

Not for us the dear delights of window-gazing, of 
comparing prices and textures in one big, temptingly 
set-out establishment after another. . . . Well, we got 
our delight in another way. 

Shopping for the girls was a game of chance and skill, 
I can tell you. It “ combined all the charm of novelty 
with that of big game-hunting ! ” as Vic put it. It 
meant diving into the funniest little caves of shops, all 
garlanded by festoons of such different kinds of goods 
as picture post-cards, hanks of darning cotton, and 
onions. 


146 


LAND-GIRLS GO SHOPPING 


147 


It sometimes included vaulting over the counter our- 
selves, and helping dear old ladies to forage for what 
we wanted in a wilderness of cardboard boxes at the 
back of the shop. And even after our search it gener- 
ally meant that we went on our way disappointed, to 
the accompaniment of such remarks as “ No, indeed, I’m 
very sorry ! I’m sold out of every bit ” — of whatever 
it was we wanted - — “ and I don’t know when I shall 
ever see any ! It’s the war, yes, yes ! I haven’t got a 
ha’porth of nothing of the sort, not in the whole place ! ” 

This seemed to be the keynote of supplies in the 
town, late on that very wet Saturday afternoon when 
I had accompanied Vic, and Peggy, the tiny Timber- 
girl, to do the shopping for the rest of our camp. 

“Got the list, Celery-face?” said Vic. As we shel- 
tered for a moment in an archway I pulled out the long 
list of commissions which our colleagues had drawn up 
for us. 

Optimists! They really thought we could get these 
things for them in “ the town ” ! 

I read aloud. 

“ Last two numbers of The Tatler” (I expect the 
latest number they’ve got at the station here is April 1, 
Nineteen Five.) 

“ Pot of lemon-marmalade ; you could get it at Mor- 
ris’s. (I don’t think.) 

“ Sybil wants jasmine soap, Is. 3d.” (Why not the 
moon?) 

“ Two skeins of floss embroidery silk, deep cream or 
nearest.” (The nearest is Regent Street, I expect.) 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


148 

" Reel of black cotton, No. 40, packet needles, No. 
9’s, brown shoe-laces, broad.” (All asked for, and none 
to be had.) 

“ Shocking ! ” was Vic’s cheery verdict. “ As for the 
packets of grey square envelopes for Miss Easton, noth- 
ing doing — and there was I pinning my faith to them 
having a good line in salvage stock left over from the 
Ark, this being the last place where the Flood stopped 
* — not that it ever has really stopped in Wales, if you 
ask me.” 

“ Oh, that eternal joke about the weather in Wales ! ” 
I laughed. “ Just as if it didn’t rain much harder in 
plenty of other places ! Have you ever stayed in Sur- 
rey, by the way? That's where it never leaves off!” 

“ It ’ud have a job to beat this beauty-spot today,” 
persisted Vic, winking the rain from her lashes. “ Look 
at it ! ” 

It certainly was a soaking wet afternoon, Wales run- 
ning Surrey a good second for once. 

For it certainly was a soaking wet afternoon! The 
clouds were a blanket of indigo, from which the rain 
poured in millions of white streams, hissing on to the nar- 
row, little, slate-paved street, all shiny with puddles. 
Tossing the drops from the brim of my Land Army hat, 
I went on reading the list of ordinary every-day things 
which we Land Girls in the damp depths of that wilder- 
ness found as hard to come by as gold ! 

I read* 

66 ‘ Gramophone needles.’ (No earthly.) 

<Cfi Dri-ped for Curley’s boots. (No.) 6 Tin of 


LAND-GIRLS GO SHOPPING 


149 


toffee.’ (No.) 4 Stickirig-plaister.’ (No.) 4 Or- 

anges.’ (What are they?) 4 Writing-pad.’ (Bagged 
the last.) 4 Shampoo-powder, any decent sort that 
smells nice ’ ” 

44 Aha. Who’s wanting to make her hair smell nice 
all of a sudden? ” demanded Peggy with interest. 
44 I’m astonished at her! Who is it? ” 

44 Don’t know,” I fibbed valiantly — for I knew per- 
fectly. It was young Elizabeth who had begun to want 
to minister to that thick, soft hair-crop of hers in this 
way. ... A sign of the times! That fixed it, surely? 
I exchanged a soulful though still half-credulous glance 
with the nearest cottage-window, blank with rain. 

44 1 haven’t tried Mr. Lloyd, the only chemist’s, for 
that yet,” I went on. 44 Shall we go on and see if he’s 
ever heard of such a thing? ” 

Cramming the list into my pocket, we set out again 
down that river of a street. 

The chemist’s shop was at the other end of it. 

And as we splashed down the street we had a little 
adventure of the kind that had probably occurred to 
more than one set of land girls. 

A group of lads who encountered us began to laugh 
and jeer at our uniform — they themselves were in 
44 civvies,” mackintosh and caps. Farmers’ lads from 
remote places in the mountains ! 

I don’t know what they said, but from the tone it was 
obviously not complimentary. 

So feeling that blank discomfort which falls upon 
the average girl at any man’s incivility, I found myself 


150 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


clutching Peggy’s arm in order to hurry past, and say- 
ing hastily : 44 Come on, Vic ” 

But Vic, to my horror, had paused. 

She left my side. She took a step towards the near- 
est of the lads, a rosy-faced nineteen-year-old with a 
ragged thatch of black hair showing under his bowler 
hat. There she stood, firmly planted on the streaming 
road, handsome head well up in the rain, figure held 
proudly erect, and she demanded in a voice that rang : 

44 What’s that you’re saying about us?” A sheep- 
ish giggle from the group; not one of the boys spoke. 

44 You were saying we ought to be ashamed of our- 
selves, wasn’t it? Something like that, eh? That’s 
what you think of us, is it? ” Vic went on. 

44 I’d like just to tell you what we Land Army girls 
think of you ! ” Vic announced. 44 And that is, that it’s 
you who ought to be ashamed of yourselves! Huh! 
Why aren’t you in France? Can’t leave the farm, you 
can’t. You’re sheltering yourselves behind the land, 
you are. You ought to be standing shoulder to 
shoulder with the rest o’ the Royal Welsh Fusiliers. 

44 You’ve got regiments. Nobody can say they don’t 
fight all right. Yet here you are at home. Exemption, 
eh? Indispensables — I don’t think. Who’s to milk 
father’s cows? Well, we’ve volunteered to do that. 
That’s what we’re here for. That’s why you can’t bear 
to see us about the place. You’re afraid ” 

Mutters from the boys here. 

44 Yes, you’re afraid that when it’s shown that we 
girls can do most o’ your work you’ll be pushed out 


LAND-GIRLS GO SHOPPING 


151 


after all ! ” went on the relentless Vic. 66 So you try 
and bring a bad name on the Land Army, you little 
blighters, who take jolly good care you aren’t in any 
army at all ! You make game of our uniform, you that 
haven’t a suit o’ khaki among the lot of you! Nice 
ones you are to talk ! ” 

Here there was an uneasy movement in the enemy’s 
ranks. 

Skulking little wretches! There are some of these 
in every place, town or country — the dregs of a noble 
race whose cream was taken first of all. Probably as 
soon as our backs were turned they would have wheeled 
round and begun to shout after us again. But this 
Vic did not mean to allow. She kept her face turned 
squarely on the retreat. 

She called out after them: 

“ Making fun, were you, because we girls wear the 
breeches? A good job for the country that we do! 
As for you, it’s a pity they can’t take and make you,” 
raising her voice to a shout, “ wear petticoats ! ” 

They were now out of ear-shot, so she turned, flushed 
and triumphant. , 

“ I’m astonished at you,” Peggy launched her favour- 
ite dictum reproachfully, as we plodded on in the wet. 
“ I wouldn’t stoop to answer back a lot of louts like 
that. I wouldn’t speak to ’em.” 

“ Daresay you wouldn’t,” retorted Vic, good-hu- 
mouredly, “ but if we were all as jolly dignified as you 
and Celery-face here, those Cuthberts would go through 
the rest of their natch never knowing what a decent 


152 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


girl thought of ’em ! So I thought I might as well de- 
mean myself to tell them off proper just for once in a 
way ! ” 

With which conclusion we found ourselves just out- 
side the tiny chemist’s shop. A dog-cart was drawn 
up there — little did I suspect at that moment who had 
driven in it ! I only noticed that it was occupied by a 
little stable-boy who did odd jobs about the Lodge for 
Captain Holiday. 

Well, in we all three dumped to the shop with col- 
oured globes and show-cards and dangling bunches of 
“ baby’s-comforters ” and sponges of Victorian date. 
And here there met our astonished eyes that figure that 
was so utterly and entirely uncharacteristic of “ the 
town,” or of anything at all in the country round 
about it ! 

It was a girl, in an ultra-smart, white and black rub- 
ber rain-coat, with a small black and white rain-hat set 
at an indescribably French angle on her head. Our 
first glimpse of her, as she stood with her back to us and 
her face to the obviously paralysed little Welsh chemist, 
gave us the impression of some slim and elegant magpie 
who had flown in there to shelter from the rain. 

She was speaking. Her high-pitched, clear drawl 
seemed to belong to Bond Street. 

“ But d’you mean to say you don’t keep any of 
Roget et Collet’s things ? ” 

Then, as we Land girls came clumping and dripping 
in, she turned with a little stare that seemed to say, 
“ What figures of fun have we here? ” 


LAND-GIRLS GO SHOPPING 


153 


Our rainy-day kit is scarcely dainty. That brown 
Board of Agriculture mackintosh with the flappy cape- 
sleeves seemed to amuse the pretty townified girl. 

Ravishingly pretty she was in her small-mouthed, 
big-eyed, Lily-Elsie style with an authentic curl twist- 
ing in front of her pink ear, and e} r elashes to which the 
rain-drops hung. How perfectly suited, too, by the 
costly simple “ rightness ” of her clothes. Girl and 
“ get-up ” composed a type one would scarcely have 
expected to see here. 

The last person I expected to see — for I had seen her 
before ! 

With my second good hard look at this fashionable 
vision I recognized her. 

“Hul-lo! You here? It is you, isn’t it!” I ex- 
claimed. 

She opened her eyes at me, while Peggy and Vic stood 
by in amazement that this chic magpie apparition should 
be known to me. 

I hadn’t been mistaken, even though I could not 
imagine what should bring her here of all places in the 
world. It was she all right. 

It was Muriel Elvey, the girl who had taken Harry 
from me ! 

Muriel opened her big eyes even more widely upon 
me. 

“Good gracious! Is it? Yes, it’s Joan Matthews! 
How priceless ! ” she exclaimed in that pretty drawl 
of hers. She glanced from me to the other two Land 
Girls and back again. “ Of course! How d’you do? ” 


154 * 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


Here she extended her small, perfectly-gloved hand 
towards my sunburnt paw, that I saw for the first time 
was irremediably roughened by farm work. 

I saw that Miss Muriel took in this and every other 
detail of my appearance, while she went on gaily: 

“Isn’t this too funny? The last person I’d ever 
dreamt of seeing! Of course, I’d heard you’d gone on 
the land, Joan, or something quaint like that ” 

“ Why ‘ quaint ’? ” thought I, while the same thought 
showed on the faces of my two mates. 

“ But I didn’t know at all which bit of ‘ the land ’ 
it was supposed to be,” concluded Muriel. “ Isn’t it 
appallingly hard work? Can you stand it? It would 
kill me,” she went on. She always could chatter nine- 
teen to anybody else’s dozen. “ I get fearfully done up, 
with my own war work.” 

“ I didn’t know you did any.” 

“ Oh, dear, yes. I go round to no end of hospitals 
in town and play the piano to the men. They adore 
it,” declared Muriel. “ Only the nurses are such cats ! 
Women never can be decent to me, somehow I had a 
fiendish row with one ward-sister — all jealousy on her 
part, of course. I simply came away. But what a 
place to come away to, isn’t it?” She gave a tiny 
grimace about the musty village shop, and towards the 
glimpse of streaming wilderness outside. “ And imag- 
ine my meeting you here ! ” 

I spoke up. 

“ Well, but imagine meeting you ! I thought you 
were never to be seen away from London or some civil- 


LAND-GIRLS GO SHOPPING 


155 


ized seaside town? What brings you to Careg? ” 

For even yet the whole situation hadn’t broken upon 
me. Only, I was sore and ruffled, and utterly upset 
by this meeting with Muriel. 

It was opening an old wound. I’d thought I’d for- 
gotten. But, brought face to face with this girl for 
whom Harry had left me before he sailed, my heart 
throbbed as painfully as it had on that ghastly morn- 
ing when I’d got that note to say he’d gone. 

Now I wondered with a stab if she were actually en- 
gaged to him? I hadn’t heard that she was. 

She, the unexpected one, gave a pleased little laugh. 

“What brought me to Wales?” Muriel replied. 
“ You may well ask, my dear. I was positively 
dragged down here. Pestered out of my life to comet 
By a man, of course. No ! ” — laughing again — “ you 
needn’t look as if you thought it must be a romance. 
He is merely a cousin. My cousin Dick Holiday ” 

“ What — ? ” I echoed, thoroughly petrified by this. 
Her cousin? He was Muriel’s cousin? He, who had 
been talking to me of “ the ” girl — and who had allowed 
me to leap to the conclusion that she and the girl-cousin 
who was coming down to stay were one and the same 
person ! Violently I had leapt to that conclusion. 
Quite violently, in my haste, I thought now : 

“ Oh ! The man-snatcher ! She took my Harry. 
Now she’s annexed Captain Holiday. She takes every- 
body!” 

“ I promised him I’d come down with mother and play 
the piano for his soldiers and things at some priceless 


156 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


concert or other that he’s giving,” Muriel Elvey went 
on. 44 His big place down here is turned into a hospital, 
you know. That is,” with a glance at my muddy boots 
and uniform, 44 1 don’t suppose you’ve met him, of 
course, but he’s ” 

44 What, Captain Holiday?” Yic broke in, unad- 
dressed and heartily. 44 Not met the gent what’s giv- 
ing the concert? Met him? Huh! I should shay 
sho!” 

Muriel, with an indescribable stiffening of her pretty, 
well-turned-out figure, stared up at the big Cockney 
Land Girl who thus accosted her. 

Vic leaned against the counter, beaming. She might 
have stood for the symbolical figure of Young Democ- 
racy, gazing tolerantly down upon costly Convention. 

44 All us girls’ll be turning up at Captain Holiday’s 
concert,” Vic told her. 44 It’s going to be some beano, 
I give you my word. So you’re going to oblige, too, 
are you? See you then! ” She gave a little nod, and 
turned to the chemist who had been listening with the 
concentration of a male gossip to every syllable of this 
conversation. 

44 Now, Mr. Lloyd! What about this shampoo 
powder we’ve heard so much about? . . . What’s in 
that box, there, to the right? . . . There we are! Egg 
and lemon — and very nice, too. Sixpence? Right! 
Good-bye-e-e-e ! ” 

Vic marshalled us out of the shop with a friendly grin 
divided between the chemist and Muriel Elvey, who was 


LAND-GIRLS GO SHOPPING 


157 


left standing there — utterly pole-axed, I am sure by 
this glimpse of the sort of companionship into which 
one was launched when one joined the Land Army. 

I could see that she found Vic “ too impossible for 
words ! ” 


This hurt me for my messmate and pal, though I am 
convinced Vic knew little and cared less about the fact 
that she had just been looked upon as a young female 
hooligan ! I tramped back along the “ puddlesome ” 
roads to camp in a state of mind that I had not known 
since I’d shaken the dust of London off my feet in the 
spring. 

Still “ minding ” so dreadfully about Muriel Elvey 
and Harry? 

Why be surprised because men fell like ninepins 
before her expensively-shod feet? Yet I was astonished. 
Not at Harry. At that other man for whom she was 
66 the ” girl — or so I’d convinced myself. 

Surely, though, Captain Holiday should have been 
the exception to the rule that men adore the Muriel 
type? 

Yes ; I’d made up mental pictures of this girl of whom 
he’d talked without mentioning her name. 

To think that the girl he wanted could be a Muriel ! 

She was the girl of whom one couldn’t think without 
setting her in the background of restaurant-lights, hot- 
house flowers and Bond Street dressmakers. 

When one saw Muriel, one saw always her “ things ” : 
Muriel and her pearl-string ; Muriel and her gold-mesh 


158 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


purse with tiny powder-box and lip-stick attached; 
Muriel and her mauve leather dressing-case ; Muriel and 
her ivory manicure-set. 

Each was a lure, each was a mesh of the net for a 
man like my lost admirer Harry. . . . His people were 
now exceedingly well-off, but there had been no luxury 
in his boyhood, which, as he’d told me, had been passed 
in a bleak little house behind the shop where the money 
had been made, penny by penny, to give him his chance. 

At twenty-five, luxury was still rather a new delight 
to him. He could not take it for granted, poor darl- 
ing ; he who had never seen his mother with any 
“ pretty ” things of her own. Hence the reaction. 
He loved a woman to have 46 possessions.” He adored 
her to “ fuss ” incessantly about her nails and skin and 
hair. 

But Captain Holiday, I thought, liked such different 
things ! 

Him one couldn’t think of without a background of 
out-of-doors ; woods, mountain, field — and perhaps a 
manure-heap with a Land Girl working there. 

And now (so I persuaded myself) he had become in- 
fatuated with and wanted to marry a boudoir-type of 
girl, who hated to go out in a wind! 

Ah, the tricks that are played by the charm of Con- 
trast! . . . and why should I feel sore about them? 


CHAPTER XVIII 


THE NIGHT OF THE CONCERT 


A T last the great day of the long-discussed Con- 
cert arrived. 

At last the burning question was decided 
whether we Campites were to attend in uniform or 
“ civvies.” 

Popular opinion had been in favour of Sunday-go-to- 
meeting clothes. Some girls had wired home to hasten 
their parcels. The red-haired Welsh timber-girl had 
been all delight over the prospect of adorning herself 
in a blouse of rose-pink voile with flowers embroidered 
in coarse white cotton. How entirely it spoilt her 
looks ! In fact, there was scarcely a girl in that camp 
who didn’t look a thousand times more attractive in uni- 
form than she did in an ordinary hat and frock. 

Uniform does manage to be always “ right ” in a way 
that only the most successful u other clothes ” ever 
achieve. But only one woman in twenty can ever be 
persuaded to see that. 

Elizabeth and I were highly pleased, however, when 
the verdict came from the forewoman that uniform was 
to be worn at the concert after all. 

That concert began early, in order to finish early. 
We should never have time to get back from work, have 
our tea, and change into civilian clothes before we set 
out again for the hospital — particularly the gang of 
159 


160 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


timber-workers, who were now in the woods, two miles 
beyond the training farm. And it wouldn’t look nice 
to have them in uniform and the farm-girls out of it. 
We must be all alike, decided Miss Easton, and smarten 
up our working kit by getting into a clean smock and 
giving our boots an extra polish. 

Grumbling broke out — what camp in either the 
women’s or the men’s armies could go on without its 
grouse? But the girls agreed to lump it, as it had to 
be. 

“ After all, the boys’ll have to be in their everlasting 
hospital blue, with those chronic red ties o’ theirs that 
I’m getting fair fed up with the sight of, so we’ll be fel- 
low-sufferers in distress,” pronounced Vic cheerfully as 
she swallowed her tea, left the table, and then got to 
work on another pair of brogues. 

“ After you with that brown boot-polish, young 
Mop ” — to Elizabeth — “ and when you’ve finished with 
the glass, Peggy, p’raps you’ll find me a clean handker- 
chief, the thieves in this place having pinched the lot 
of mine. Ho ! Why do I talk in this unfemin-nine 
style? Most unwomanly I call it. Effects of this here 
life in camp,” she rattled on good-humouredly. 

“ I shall have to mind myself presently, before that re- 
fined pal of Celery-face’s. Her what’s going to play 
the piano. She didn’t half give me a nasty look in the 
chemist’s. Sure she thinks I’m no lady. Now what’s 
her little game ? Is she trying to get off with the Cap- 
tain, Celery-face? ” 

I said a trifle bitterly : 


THE NIGHT OF THE CONCERT 161 

“ If she likes people, she does not have to 6 try 5 for 
them.” 

“ Ah, is she one o’ those lucky ones,” said Vic, cheer- 
fully shining her brogues. “ Well, I’m going to watch 
the young lady tonight, and see what she makes 
of ” 

“ Hurry up, you girls ! ” urged Miss Easton from the 
porch. “ The concert starts at a quarter to. It’s 
time we were off ! ” 

* * * * * * * 

Well! As Vic said, we were to “ see life ” that even- 
ing at the concert. 

The scene was that big comfortable country house 
transformed into that jolly hospital for the boys from 
the Front. Its enormous double drawing-room must 
have witnessed plenty of “ county ” dinner-parties ; dull 
and formal functions, no doubt. Nothing dull or 
formal about tonight, now that it was turned into an 
impromptu music-hall! 

The wounded lads buzzed about it like a swarm of 
blue bees giving an At Home, welcoming the visitors, 
showing them into the rows of seats set in the lower 
half of the room. 

“ Here you are ! Land Army to the right ! ” a cheery 
voice hailed us as we trooped in — twenty-odd girls in 
uniform. 

It was Peggy’s sergeant who greeted us. His hair 
was varnished brighter than the parquet floor ; he wore 
the largest rose I have ever seen in his button-hole, and 
the gaudiest lucky golliwog decorated his red tie. 


162 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


“ I was to reserve these seats for you young ladies. 
The best, of course ! ” he beamed upon us. 66 Stalls this 
way, if you please. Peggy, you sit at the end of the 
row so that you can pop out quick in the interval.” 

“ I’m astonished at you,” came a Timber-girl’s re- 
tort as we settled into our seats and looked about the 
bright, crowded place. 

The farther end was occupied by the stage platform 
with the piano set near the wings. A curtain had been 
made of what looked like all the spare quilts in the 
house. 

Standing in front of this (as I saw directly we came 
in) was our host, Captain Holiday. 

Evening-dress made him taller and different, both 
from the smart soldier he was in khaki and the country 
sportsman he seemed in those dilapidated tweeds of his. 
Suddenly he seemed a stranger again to me. It chilled 
me. 

He was talking to one of the soldiers, a red-haired 
Blue Boy, with a good-looking, clean-cut, actor-ish face. 
I heard Captain Holiday saying : 

“ Righto ! I’ll tell the Colonel to let you fix him up. 
That’s in the second part.” 

“ Yes, sir,” said the red-haired boy. 

Captain Holiday, looking down the room caught sight 
of our party. I heard him give an “ Ah.” He smiled, 
nodding at me. This was somehow cheering after that 
slight chill. He made a movement forward, I think — 
I’m sure he was coming to speak to me. 


THE NIGHT OF THE CONCERT 163 


But at that moment a pretty, coquettish voice called 
“ Dick!” 

And there entered, by a door nearer the stage, Muriel 
Elvey and her mother. Mrs. Elvey, the sort of mother 
who never is anything but an adequate 66 background ” 
to her daughters, looked placid and pleased in well- 
fitting black, with diamonds. 

As for Muriel, she was lovely, yes, lovely ! in her 
Frenchiest little frock of pinks and mauves, and mingled 
heliotropes. The girlish, low-cut bodice of it had no 
sleeves, and was held up over her white shoulders by 
strings of palest coral beads. She was a vision such 
as Car eg had never seen. No wonder the Blue Boys 
gazed! No wonder the Land Girls, in their clean but 
coarse ©yeralls, bent forward and studied her with the 
rapturous, envying sighs they would have heaved over 
some exquisite fashion-plate! No wonder that she was 
followed by a slim masculine shape in black-and-white 
that was Colonel Fielding. 

He, too! No wonder, indeed, that her cousin, Cap- 
tain Holiday, was at Muriel’s side in an instant, bending 
his dark head over her golden one, with its fillet of coral- 
pink buds. 

Now, curiously enough perhaps, that sight spoilt the 
whole first part of the concert for me. 

At first I didn’t know why. Such was my incredible 
self-deception that I gave myself quite the wrong rea- 
son for the fact that Muriel Elvey came between me 
and any enjoyment of the playlet " Poached Eggs and 


164 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


Pearls,” excellently acted by a company of nurses and 
wounded. I was beset, I told myself, by the prompt- 
ings of jealous memory. 

I pictured that golden, rose-filleted head of Muriel’s 
close to another dark head. Harry’s ! That was what 
I couldn’t help thinking of. I watched Muriel — the 
centre of all eyes as she sat at the piano — and I real- 
ized what she’d meant to Harry. Not a thought had 
he had for me after that evening when I introduced him 
to her. And now history was repeating itself. Now 
Captain Holiday hadn’t a look for anybody else. 

It hurt. 

Oh! Not the Captain Holiday part, of course! I 
assured myself hastily — the other. I’d thought I 
was getting over that. How queer are the workings of 
that most painful passion — jealousy! Brooding, I 
sat there with my mates, enjoying themselves on each 
side of me. I laughed with the others, with the others 
I watched the stage, and clapped when the curtain 
fell — to Muriel’s music — for the end of the first 
part. 

Then Captain Holiday, still standing by Muriel at 
the piano, called out: 

“ There will now be an interval of fifteen minutes ! 
War-time refreshments will be found in the dining- 
room.” 

So, with a scraping aside of chairs and a babel of 
voices, the audience surged out of the “ theatre.” I 
went with the others. But that black mood of mine had 
swept my mind away out of my new and joyous country 


THE NIGHT OF THE CONCERT 165 

life, back to the bad old days of London after Harry 
left. 

I sat on a big chair near the door, and watched. 

Each Land Girl had found a wounded soldier or two 
to attend to her. Vic, with Elizabeth under her wing, 
was the centre of a group of blue. Then a long glass 
of lemonade was brought to me by the pleasant-faced, 
red-haired lad I had noticed with Captain Holiday. He 
talked to me in a gentle, but curious, voice, husky, yet 
high-pitched. For he told me he’d been shot through 
the lungs. 

44 Done me in for the profession if I go back after the 
war,” he said cheerfully. 44 Spoilt my singing voice.” 
He told me he’d been on the stage from the time he was 
ten until he joined the Army in 1914. 

Here Sergeant Syd, coming up to us with an arm 
through Peggy’s, broke into the conversation. 

44 Yes, and you’d have been all right, you silly 
blighter, if you’d have stayed where they wanted to keep 
you, down at the base singing to the boys in rest camp. 
You needn’t ever have left there! But no. He would 
go up the line, Miss.” 

The red-haired actor warrior agreed in the husky 
voice that was spoilt for song: 

44 1 wanted to go up the line. After all, I didn’t join 
to go on singi lg.” 

Another aspect of life: the obscurely heroic that is 
taken for granted every day ! 

44 Corporal Ferrant,” said a voice at his elbow. It 
was Muriel again. 


166 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


“ Oh, will you go to the Colonel’s room now? ” she 
said pleasantly. 44 He’s ready for you to make him 
up.” Then : 

44 Hullo, Joan! ” she said. 44 What do you think of 
this priceless show? My hands are dropping off with 
playing so hard.” 

She glanced around. Then she let herself down 
lightly on the arm of my chair as if she wanted to say 
something particular to me. 

“ I say,” she said, with a sudden little shrewd glance 
at me. 44 Wasn’t it funny about Harry Markham? ” 

44 Funny ? ” I echoed, startled. 44 What — which was 
funny? ” 

Muriel, adjusting her pink shoulder strap, answered: 

44 Oh, just his getting brought back to Blighty again 
after he’d had only three weeks in Salonika!” 

Harry? In England? The first I’d heard of it. 
Yes ; naturally she’d know and I shouldn’t. But it was 
bitter ! 

44 Apparently the General can’t do without him,” she 
went on. 44 1 expect Harry’s jolly glad to get back to 
London. I had a note this morning from him; for- 
warded. Of course he tore up to see me as soon as he 
arrived.” 

44 Of course he would ! ” said I, with quite a successful 
laugh. 

Muriel, watching my face, said : 

44 1 expect you know I saw a lot of him after that night 
you introduced him at 4 Romance ’ ” 

44 Oh, I knew.” Didn’t I ! I nodded quite cheerfully 


THE NIGHT OF THE CONCERT 167 


at this pretty, prosperous girl who had written that let- 
ter to me in the spring. 

Through the confused chatter of the crowded room 
Muriel spoke confidentially. 

“ He Well, between ourselves, he went abso- 

lutely mad about me, you know. Proposed and pro- 
posed ” 

“ Really,” said I, with another composed nod. Every 
word drove straight into my heart. Harry had pro- 
posed. Several times ! Were they actually engaged, 
then? 

I was too proud to ask, but how I wanted to know ! 

“ He’s quite nice,” Muriel remarked critically. 
“ Quite good-looking. Quite amusing to go out with. 
One enjoyed Harry’s taking one out. But marrying 
him might be another matter ; because ” 

Here she stopped. The stage-bell was ringing. 
People began to scramble past us out of the room. 

“ 1 must go,” cried Muriel. “ The second part’s be- 
ginning now.” 

But I held on to an end of her mauve sash. 

“ Wait ! ” I said. 

I felt I must know about Harry. “ Because,” she 
said — and stopped. Did it mean because she meant 
to marry her cousin? I simply must find out, for Cap- 
tain Holiday’s sake. Remember, I still believed she 
must be the girl of whom he’d told me “ she hasn’t said 
6 Yes ’ or ‘No ’ to me yet.” She must mean “ Yes,” I 
thought excitedly. 

I kept close to her as we moved out of the doorway- 


168 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


“ Do tell me, Muriel,” I urged, “ what you were going 
to!” 

She laughed, enjoying her power to tease. 

“ Oh, you want to know if I am going to be engaged 
to Harry or not? ” 

“ You said ‘ not.’ ” 

“No, I didn’t. I simply said marrying him might 
— only 4 might ’ — be another matter.” 

“ Yes, yes,” I agreed hurriedly, “ but why? ” 

Muriel’s answer was not one I should have dreamt 
of hearing from her. 

Tilting her fair head, she smiled over her white 
shoulder and said: 

“ Oh, well ! Because, after all, he isn’t a gentleman, 
is he? ” 

This remark was a shock to me. 

Harry Markham — “ not a gentleman — ” To hear 
Muriel say it! 

Just because Harry’s father, that self-made man, 
hadn’t “ made ” himself in time to send his son to a 
public school? Didn’t that seem rather like . . . well, 
hideous snobbery? 

Further, for a girl to let a man take her out to the 
theatre, the opera — for her to accept innumerable 
dinners and taxi-drives from him, and then for her to 
sum him up to another girl as “ not a gentleman ” — 
didn’t it sound like ... to put it kindly, ill-breeding? 

It surprised me so from Muriel because after all she 
was a lady ! 

But 


THE NIGHT OF THE CONCERT 169 


Would any girl who was a gentlewoman at heart have 
been guilty of such a remark? 

And did Captain Holiday, who also — as I believed 
— wanted to marry Muriel — did he know that she was 
the sort of girl who would say such a thing? 

I was resentfully wondering over that as the pink 
and mauve figure of Muriel slipped back to her seat at 
the piano. I returned to my chair next to Sybil, and 
the second part of the soldiers’ concert began. 

Now the opening item was a clog-dance by a merry- 
faced, one-armed Lancashire Fusilier. It was good; 
but I could not fix any attention on the stage just then. 

Was Muriel going to marry Captain Holiday, who 
had now drawn up a chair close beside hers at the piano? 
Or did she mean after all to take Harry? Which? 
Which? Did she know herself, yet? 

And — here an odd thought came to me as those 
clogs pattered faster than a shower of summer rain — 
did I myself know which of those two young men I 
least wanted Muriel to marry? 

“ Clicketty clicketty clack clack ! ” went the clogs 
on the stage ; I watched, with the others, while the light 
twinkling feet within them danced on and on. 

I was thinking all the while. Of course it would 
break my heart if I saw that pretty girl at the piano 
actually married to the man she had already poached. 
Yes, of course it would, I told myself resolutely; but 
at the bottom of my heart I was stifling a mad little imp 
of an idea. This whispered : — 

“ You wouldn’t mind if Muriel married Harry now. 


170 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


Although it was a stab, it wasn’t a deep one. Don’t 
pretend! For you are really through with Harry. 
It is not about Harry that you are worrying any 
more ! ” 

— Ah ! Now I was getting nearer the truth. I was 
coming to it, coming . . . But I still told myself it 
was Harry whose engagement would hurt me. Why 
should I mind if 

Here a storm of applause broke out all round me. 
It was the end of the clog-dance, but in the midst of 
the din I went on revolving my own little problem. 

I told myself that, of course, it was comparatively 
nothing to me if Muriel chose to marry this devoted cou- 
sin of hers, Captain Holiday. He (I considered, per- 
sonally) was rather too good for her. Still, most other 
people would consider that no man could be too good for 
a girl as lovely as Muriel Elvey. 

Anyhow, it was no business of mine. Who was I? 
Merely a Land Girl, sunburnt and coarsely clothed, a 
worker in training at a farm on Captain Holiday’s 
estate. Why should I care twopence about this whole 
question? I didn’t care. Of course, I didn’t care. 

Here Sybil, who had secured a programme, leant over 
me to look at mine. The next item read: “Song: 
‘ Until ! ’ by Sergeant Sydney Escott.” 

“ Ah,” said Vic, with feeling, “ now we are going to 
hear something. Eh, Peggy?” 

All the Land Girls were leaning towards the smallest 
Timber Girl, chaffing and smiling encouragement. 
P e ggy> to whom this was “ the ” item of the programme, 


THE NIGHT OF THE CONCERT 171 


popped a piece of toffee into her mouth, and assumed a 
look as if she had never heard the singer’s name be- 
fore. 

But just as we expected to see her sweetheart jump 
up on to the platform, one of the other blue-coated, 
red-cravated boys came up in answer to a nod from Cap- 
tain Holiday, bearing under his arm a large cardboard 
placard. This he put up, carefully, in the number- 
stand at the side of the piano. The word upon it in 
large scarlet letters was “ Extra.” 

Everybody in the hall murmured it aloud. Vic’s car- 
rying voice rose above all the others. 

“‘Extra’? Now what’s this goin’ to be? Sur- 
prise turn, eh ? ” she said. 

She was right. 

With an arresting jerk it brought me out of the 
mood in which I was beginning to forget that there 
was a concert going on about me at all. It brought 
me straight back to where I was, in the entertainment 
hall of Captain Holiday’s Hospital, in the middle of 
a crowd of eager, enjoying people. 

Truly it was to be a startler to me, the surprise turn 
that came on next ! 


CHAPTER XIX 


THE SURPRISE TURN 

“Cbld eyelids that hide like a jewel 

Hard eyes that grow soft for an hour. 

The heavy white limbs and the cruel 
Red mouth like a venomous flower, 

When these are gone by with their glories, 

What shall rest of thee then, what remain, 

Oh wicked and sombre Dolores.” 

■ — Swinburne. 

T HERE swept down towards the impromptu 
foot-lights an apparition tall and beautiful. 
Dressed as a Spanish lady, it was a study in 
black, white, and red. Black was the mantilla draped 
so filmily over the glossy black hair, black was the 
sequined gown that clung to the slim shape, black was 
the fan that waved, beckoned, hid, revealed and hid 
again in a series of gestures, each more perfectly and 
subtly coquettish than the last. 

White was the handsome face, whiter the proud 
shoulders above the cut-out bodice. Scarlet was the 
carnation worn just under the ear, and vividly scarlet 
were the made-up lips of this new performer. 

“Whoever is it?” ejaculated Peggy, loudly, and 
then clapped a hand over her mouth. But there was a 
perceptibly louder buzz in the talk all over the hall. 

“ Say ; who’s she ? ” 

“ Isn’t she beautiful? ” 


172 


THE SURPRISE TURN 


173 


“ Lovely figure ” 

“ Little bit o’ Dixie, eh? 99 

“ Sssh The Captain’s goin’ to make a speech 

about her ! ” 

For Captain Holiday had stepped forward from his 
place by the piano and had, with a sort of little laugh- 
ing flourish, taken the lovely creature’s black-gloved 
hand. 

“ Ladies and gentlemen,” he announced, “ as an extra, 
my friend Signora Dolores has kindly consented to sing 
an old-fashioned song, entitled * Carissima.’ ” 

He went back to his seat. Muriel at the piano, with 
an unexpectedly sweet smile towards this rival beauty, 
this wonderful stranger who was to sing, struck the 
first rippling chords of an accompaniment. 

Then, from those vermilioned lips there broke out in 
a low contralto voice the first notes of the song: i 

** Carissima, the night is fair ” 

What a voice ! It was not powerful — indeed, it 
seemed to me as if the singer were using only part of it 

— but to what purpose ! It was sweet as the deepest 
brown honey, and of a quality that — well ! even as the 
water-finder’s rod goes straight home to the hidden 
spring, so that kind of voice, “ finds ” the listener’s heart 

— finds tears. 

Surprised at myself, I blinked those tears away. I 
glanced from the black, white and scarlet beauty on 
the stage to the audience for a moment. All spell- 
bound, all a-gaze. 


174 A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 

- I saw little Mrs. Price — a row back — slip her hand 
into that of her gentle giant beside her. I saw Vic’s 
face without a smile, full of brooding tender memories. 
I saw Elizabeth all tense . . . the soldier-boys were 
serious, intent; the country people behind them looked 
as full of solemn, poignant enjoyment as if this were 
not a mere Concert, but a funeral itself. 

As for me, I was ashamed of myself. I had to bite 
my lips and clench my hands as the syrupy Victorian 
melody was crooned out to the inanely Victorian 
words : — 


“ Carissima ! Cariss — ima ! 

The night and I wa-ant oh-oh-oh-only thee!” 

Yes ; I was having to fight those senseless tears away 
from my eyes as I listened. 

Oh f It wasn’t 44 cricket ” for that woman to sing 
so that she could reduce a healthy matter-of-fact Land- 
worker to this state of — of mushy sentimentality ! 

She did more than that. Before the end of the sec- 
ond verse she made me realize something that left me 
gasping. 

I was just thinking, while I listened : 

44 Ah, if her voice goes so straight home, uncon- 
sciously, what must be the effect if she sings 4 at ’ some- 
body? ” 

Then I saw her do that very thing. Slightly, raising 
the fan with a little studied gesture, the singer tilted 
her head and launched from under her eyelashes a de- 
liberate glance at Captain Holiday. I saw him raise 


THE SURPRISE TURN 175 

his brown chin out of his hand and look back at her 
hard, too. 

Then I saw the Signora’s reddened lips tremble, even 
through the song, into the very wickedest of smiles that 
would not be suppressed. It dimpled her powdered 
cheeks ; it almost shut her long-lashed eyes ; what a tan- 
talizing and lovely sight ! But everybody in the place 
must have seen that she was singing “ at ” him ; must 
have heard it! 

“ Carissima ! ” 

cooed that wooing contralto with its invincible appeal, 
“ Cariss-ima ! 

My boat and I will come to thee.” 

And with “ thee ” the glance was more unmistakably 
<e at ” Captain Holiday than before. 

Then I knew. 

This Spaniard — if she were Spanish? — this 
stranger with the voice and the fan and the shoulders, 
and the slim hips and the witching glances that surely 
no man on earth could withstand, must be “ she ” of 
whom Captain Holiday had spoken to me ! 

Not Muriel, after all. The blonde prettiness of 
Muriel looked positively ineffectual beside this vivid 
brunette. She, yes ! she must be “ the ” girl he’d 
meant. 

Here was a discovery. 

But the annihilating part of it was this — that I 
minded horribly. 


176 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


For in a flash I felt that I could not deny it to my- 
self. No longer could I pretend to my own heart. 
Jealous I was, more so than I’d ever been before. But 
now it was not because of Harry at all. It never would 
be Harry again. 

It was mad pain to me to see a woman — any woman 
- — bent upon attracting Dick Holiday. 

Yes, I’d come to the truth now. This had shown it 
to me. 

At last I realized that I was in love with him. . . . 

Here was a discovery, wasn’t it? 

* *• * * * * * 

In love with Captain Holiday! Of all people in the 
world ! 

What in the world had he ever done to make me in love 
with him? 

That first time at the hut he had been hideously rude 
to me ; had come up to me and, unintroduced, had asked 
me how long I thought I was going to stick life in the 
Land Army ! 

I remembered his smile as he said it. 

Then that next time in the cowshed. He’d come upon 
me in the act of chucking work, and he’d let me know 
that he knew it. Then he’d laid down the law to me 
about the way to “ muck out,” as the country phrase 
has it, the way to hold a pitchfork, and the way to 
trundle a barrow up to the manure-heap. Nothing in 
that to make a girl take any sort of a fancy to him ! 

Later on, he had informed me that I should make a 
rotten poor hen-wife, just because I’d forgotten the 


THE SURPRISE TURN 177 

milk for the chickens’ food! Not very endearing, that 
remark ! 

That same afternoon, however, he had been friendly. 
He’d walked back with me, talking all the way. But 
what about? His own love affair. The problem of 
the girl to whom he had proposed, and who had said 
neither 44 yes ” nor “ no ” to him. And I — not real- 
izing that I was getting too fond of the soiind of his 
voice whatever it happened to be saying — I had asked 
him what sort of a girl she was. He’d said the words 
that had been ringing in my head ever since : 44 Ah, 

well! She’s just the girl I want.” 

******** 

And now here she was; I saw her before me, the 
beautiful Spanish-clad singer, on this very concert plat- 
form, not more than arms’ length from him. 

I found myself simply hating her! The last words 
of her song — oh ! how that tune of 44 Carissima ” was 
going to haunt me — melted away. Muriel played the 
last chord, and again the racket of applause broke out. 

She smiled with all her white teeth ; she bowed, grace- 
fully enough but put her hand with a curious little jerk 
to her side as she did so. 

How the boys clapped her ! So did I, of course, and, 
holding myself well in hand, I exchanged comments on 
the lovely voice with the other girls through the clatter 
and the cries of 44 ’Core ! Encore ! ” 

The Signora gave a little nod that she would take 
the encore to Muriel, who was clapping as enthusiasti- 
cally as any of the audience. 


178 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


And the second song she sang was the revue success : 
“ For the First Love is the Best Love ! ” which she 
rendered as perfectly as she had the Victorian ballad. 
I could have murdered her for that ! 

Half in anguish of jealousy, half in rapture because 
of the performance, I sat listening again. She had the 
low, throaty deliciousness of some of Miss Violet Lo- 
raine’s own notes ; very wisely, she was imitating her as 
closely as possible in her rendering of her best song. 

“The new Love 
Is never the true Love ! ” 

she carolled, and again I felt the keen stab of seeing her 
mischievously tender glance at Captain Holiday. 

Oh, yes. She must be going to take him — after 
that ! 

And at the end of the song, when she stood still 
again, swaying her fan to the applause, she maddened 
me by a further piece of deliberate coquetry. 

Putting up a hand to the coal-black hair under her 
mantilla, she took out the scarlet carnation that was 
tucked close to her ear. She kissed the flower with 
those lips, painted so red. Then, holding it for a mo- 
ment, she smiled from the carnation to Captain Holi- 
day, if saying, “ Shall I let him have it? Shall I? ” 
She made a little, quick gesture as if to toss it to him, 
across the platform. Then, with a lightning-swift 
shake of her lovely head, she took that flower and threw 
it down into the auditorium for any to catch who could. 

A dozen hands went out for it. I don’t know if she 


THE SURPRISE TURN 


179 


were specially aiming at the row in which we Land Girls 
found ourselves, but at all events the carnation dropped 
almost straight into the small, brown, competent paw 
of Elizabeth, my chum, who had always been used to 
catch and throw a cricket ball just as a boy does. 

She, Elizabeth, tucked the scented souvenir into the 
breast of her overall. The signora, standing tall and 
slim just above the footlights that beat up on to the vivid 
white and scarlet of her make-up, sent down one more 
smile — a specially witching one. Then she withdrew. 
Captain Holiday set up another piece of music on the 
piano, and the concert proceeded. 

It was Peggy’s sweetheart, the sergeant, who sang 
next. 

At least, I fancy it was. For, to tell you the truth, 
I have only the most confused impression of the various 
faces and figures that appeared, one after another, close 
to Muriel’s piano on that stage. 

Sometimes it was one of the red-white-and-blue 
wounded boys. Sometimes the slim, white-f rocked 
figure of the village schoolmaster’s daughter, for whom 
they brought in a harp. 

I was drawn away from it to the drama in my own 
mind. 

I — to have grown to care for Captain Holiday! 
Fool that I was to have allowed myself 

But, then, I hadn’t allowed myself. I had not known 
it was happening. Now it had irretrievably happened. 
Tonight had shown me that too plainly. 

What fate was upon me? Twice in my life I had 


180 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


been doomed to fall in love with the wrong man. First 
with Harry Markham, who certainly had done all in 
his power to bring it about. Now with Captain Dick 
Holiday, who had never flirted with me for an instant. 

Well, I must try to cure myself as soon as possible 
— that was the only thing. 

I must, somehow, take myself severely in hand and 
refuse to let myself mind so horribly because a woman 
with a voice to match her lovely face had got Captain 
Holiday at her feet. 

But for the life of me I could not help wondering who 
the singer was. Signora Dolores — was she really a 
Signora ? Or was she an English girl of an arrestingly 
Spanish type? Where had she come from? And when 
had she come to Careg? How long was she going to 
stay in the house? 

I wondered how Muriel liked that Spanish girl who 
had so completely taken the shine out of her. 

I wondered if she — the wonderful singer — were go- 
ing to sing again. 

She did not. 

I realized that this was more of her coquetry; to 
make one marvellous appearance, to reap her success, 
and then to refuse to reappear until the last note of 
“God save the King” had been sung, with all the 
wounded soldiers, and ourselves of the Land Army, 
standing to attention. 

Yes ; at last it came to the end of the concert. Votes 
of thanks had been proposed and seconded. Cheers had 


THE SURPRISE TURN 


181 


been given for our host, Captain Holiday, for the per- 
formers, and for “ the pretty young lady who had so 
kindly consented to act as accompanist,” but there was 
no further sign of the lovely lady who had sang “ Caris- 
sima.” 

I supposed that she, with the rest of the house-party, 
would be having a merry little supper afterwards, pre- 
sided over by Captain Holiday. I am afraid that at 
the thought of this I felt myself literally trembling with 
passionate envy. 

The audience, laughing and talking, began to move 
slowly from between the rows of chairs out from the 
concert-room. I found that I was deadly tired; an 
evening of emotion takes it out of a girl considerably 
more than a day of farm-work ! I turned for comfort 
to the sturdy little boyish figure of Elizabeth. 

I made myself say, “It has been jolly, hasn’t it?” 

Elizabeth nodded her bobbed head. 

I glanced at the red flower she had tucked into her 
overall, and said : “ That woman, you know, who sang 

those two songs, she was the best of all.” 

Elizabeth, with a very quick look up at me, asked 
brusquely, “ Which woman? ” 

I had opened my mouth to answer, “ Why, the Span- 
ish lady, of course,” but the words froze on my lips 
at the picture of which I had caught sight at this mo- 
ment. 

In the vestibule, at the foot of the wide stairs, stood 
Captain Holiday, laughing whole-heartedly ; a group of 


182 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


people were clustered about him and about another 
figure standing close to him waving a big black fan. 
This figure was the sight that arrested me. 

It w f as tall and slim-hipped, clad in a black and 
spangled gown with a low-cut bodice that revealed noble 
white shoulders ; it was, as far as the figure went, that of 
the Signora Dolores who had appeared at the begin- 
ning of the second part of the concert ; but — where 
were the mantilla and the glossy black tresses over which 
it had been so artistically draped? Gone — one with 
the other ! Above the white shoulders appeared the 
laughing face and the small mercilessly-groomed golden 
head of a young man ! 

“ Topping girl he makes, doesn’t he? ” I heard the 
voice of the red-haired actor-soldier say just behind me. 
“ That’s when I make him up ; his own mother wouldn’t 
know him. Why, the female impersonator we had in 
our Brigade troupe isn’t a patch on him; not the pro- 
fessional who used to get fifteen quid a week salary! 
Asked me for a few tips, he did. But there was noth- 
ing I could teach him; only lace him into his 23-inch 
ladies’ corsets ” 

I was gasping as I looked. Now that I saw the black 
wig dangling from the hand that held the fan, now that 
I knew — oh, I felt I ought to have guessed before. 

The things that give awa} T any masquerading 66 girl ” 
were there. Bert Errol and Co. have not yet learnt to 
hide the thickness of the wrist, the muscle down the 
neck just under the ear, the checked and conscious 
movements of limbs that know no medium between 


THE SURPRISE TURN 


183 


mincing and the normal stride, and (most unmistakable 
of all) the angle of the male arm at the elbow, which 
makes “ V ” instead of “ U,” as in a woman’s soft arm. 

All the rest was — what an excellent disguise ! 

“ Elizabeth ! ” I exclaimed stupidly, “ look ! ” 

" I know,” said Elizabeth briefly. 

“ But, my dear,” I said, still aghast over the revela- 
tion that Dolores was not “ the ” girl, not even 66 a ” 
girl, “ did you know when she — when he was singing? ” 

Elizabeth, with a hand at the red flower in her smock, 
said : “ I knew days ago. Colonel Fielding told me 

himself that he was going to.” 

Colonel Fielding! 

The “ lovely ” stranger was — Elizabeth’s “ old 
Colonel.” 



CHAPTER XX 


LAND ARMY TESTS 

T HE discussions of the concert, after it had 
happened, went on for as many days in our 
camp as the pre-concert discussions. 

I’ll skip those. I’ll skip the days which suddenly 
seemed to have 44 gone flat,” with all the thrill gone out 
of Land-work, for the time being. I’ll skip my own 
broodings — which were those of just any other girl in 
love with a man who prefers another woman! For 
since it could not be the 64 Signora ” I concluded that 
it was Muriel after all. 

I’ll come to the next excitement in the Land-worker’s 
life — namely, the test-exams. ! 

You see our time was nearly up at the Practice Farm. 
Our six weeks’ training was drawing to a close. If, 
at the tests, we gained a certain percentage of marks, 
Elizabeth and I would be considered 44 finished pupils,” 
and we would be passed out and sent off. 

Where ? 

Heaven and the Organizing Secretary of the County 
knew where that job would be found. 

I told myself that I only hoped it would be a good 
long trail away from Careg, away from the farm of 
bitter-sweet memories. 


184 


LAND ARMY TESTS 185 

\ ic was instructive on the subject of the changes 
to come. 

“ Any people ought to like the look o’ you two, now 
you’ve shaped to the work,” she kindly remarked. 
“ Still, you never know whether looks is going to help a 
girl or to stand in her way in this world. A nice thing 
it would be if you was landed like one of the smartest- 
looking girls I ever saw join up, Chrissie Devon ! ” 

“ What happened to her?” I inquired. 

“ Chrissie was fine with horses,” Vic said, 44 all her 
people having ridden. She was a clever girl, well edu- 
cated, and a beautiful figure on horseback. I-T, she 
was. The secretary got her a job with a brother of our 
Mr. Rhys, the bailiff, who keeps a lot of horses. 
Thought it would be just the right thing for her. So 
it would have. The only thing was, our Mr. Rhys’s 
brother didn’t consider himself half-artful. He ” 

Vic broke off to laugh. 

44 He turned up at the station before the one that she 
was going to, and saw her in the train. And,” Vic con- 
cluded with an impressive nod, 44 sent her back to the 
depot by the next one. Then he strafed our poor little 
organizing secretary till she didn’t dare see him for a 
year. 4 The idea ! ’ says he, 4 of sending me a girl that 
looked like that! Me, a widower. She would be own- 
ing the horses and me inside o’ six months ! ’ ” 

44 So then,” Vic told us, 44 Chrissie was sent to a very 
old married couple up in the hills. The old man was 
about ninety, and the old woman p’raps a shade more 
juvenile. Chrissie worked her hardest for them. But, 


186 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


if you’ll believe me, she didn’t give satisfaction there 
neither. The old woman asked our secretary if she 
couldn’t be removed. And when the secretary asked 
what was the grouse, it turns out that the old woman 
was certain that the new Land Girl had taken it into 
her head that she would be 6 his second.’ I ask you ! ” 

“ And where did she go to next? ” Elizabeth asked. 

“ Chrissie? Oh, now’s she going in for motor-tractor 
driving. She don’t stay long enough in one place to 
put anybody’s back up with her fatal beauty. That’s 
the story of her. I wonder what they’ll do with you 
and Mop ? ” 

The day of the tests arrived. 

It should have seen the arrival also of the examiner 
from London. Of this unknown personage we were 
all, including the gentle giant, Mr. Price, in a state of 
terror. However, a telegram came to say that this 
magnate was unable to attend. 

His place was taken by the local examiner, who turned 
out to be that other Mr. Rhys, the widower who had 
strafed the organizing secretary for sending him a too- 
good-looking Land Girl. Now he and that secretary, 
a little bright-eyed Welshwoman who had been a school- 
marm, had evidently made up their difference. 

She, the secretary, had come over to help with the 
tests, for which we had in the big farmyard an audience 
that I had not expected. Not only these examiners and 
the two Prices looked on while I brought in the cows to 
the stalls and set to work with stool and pail, but also 
the visitors from the Lodge ! 


LAND ARMY TESTS 


187 


Heavens ! how my heart sank into my clumping Land 
Army boots as I beheld the little procession coming 
through the red-painted farmyard gate. Captain 
Holiday, in those disgraceful but becoming grey tweeds 
of his, was walking with Mrs. Elvey in her smartest 
toque! Behind them the slim-waisted, uniformed figure 
of 3 T oung Colonel Fielding, escorting Muriel Elvey. 

“ We’ve come to look on at the tests, if we may,” 
Captain Holiday announced cheerfully to the Prices. 

Greetings were exchanged with the ladies, and though 
I kept my eyes quite steadily upon the work that I had 
in hand, I could not help seeing Muriel’s amused stare 
and smile, just as I couldn’t help hearing her treble 
twitter to the men of “ musn’t it be too quaint to have 
to wear those clothes and things — and how wonderful 
not to be afraid of all those great animals — I should 
be terrified of cows, I know I should.” 

Indulgent laughter came from all the men. I re- 
membered one of Elizabeth’s contemptuous axioms about 
the sex — “ a pretty girl can’t be too helpless or too 
afraid of mice to please a man, even now! ” 

Elizabeth, at this moment sitting beside the’ cow, 
Blodwen, wore her most man-hating looks upon her 
small, set face. As for me, I felt that now, on this oc- 
casion of all others, when, as a Land-worker, I ought to 
have been at my best, I was absolutely at my worst, 
nervous, flurried and awkward. 

I had a hideous presentiment that I should overturn 
my milking-pail, or some fiasco of that sort ! 

Raging inwardly, I approached the black-and-white 


188 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


cow who had become my friend. She was the easiest 
in the stable, as Mrs. Price had said on that first time 
of all when I had milked her. But now, to my horror, 
I realized that she was going to fidget and to be difficult. 
She was going to “ let me down ” before all these peo- 
ple ! 

Suddenly I heard Captain Holiday’s voice, not 
brusque as usual, but quiet. 

“ I say, Muriel, my child,” he said, “ stand outside 
the door, will you? K strangers go and stand close 
up to the cow when she’s being milked she gets bad- 
tempered and there’s no doing anything with her.” 

“Oh, isn’t there? I didn’t know. I’m so sorry,” 
said Muriel, airily, and she fluttered out to stand beside 
Colonel Fielding. 

Feeling grateful beyond words to the man who had 
helped me thus, I went on milking with more assurance. 
The nervous flurry melted away from me. I suc- 
ceeded in forgetting that I was doing what I was 
with a maximum of so many marks for “ approach,” 
for “ time,” for “ quantity,” for “ clean-stripping.” 

I forgot Mrs. Elvey’s lorgnette upon me from the 
cow-house door; and the eyes of the others, and the 
chatter of Muriel to the two young men. 

I just did the best I could. 

Presently Mr. Rhys, the examiner, had taken Eliza- 
beth and me into an empty shed, and, looking doubtfully 
upon us, began to ask us simple questions as to our 
everyday work. I was glad to realize that — as is so 


LAND ARMY TESTS 


189 


often the case with the male examiner — he was more 
nervous than we were. Or did he think that we, too, 
had designs upon his widowerhood? 

At all events, the marks that Mr. Rhys put down 
upon his papers seemed to be satisfactory. 

“Well, after all, I may have squeezed through!” I 
thought. 

And half an hour later Mrs. Price came to Elizabeth 
and me in the kitchen, where she had insisted upon our 
having a cup of tea after our labours, and told us that 
we had both got through our tests with nearly full marks 
in all subjects. 

Pride filled my heart, as you may imagine. Surely 
it was not an unnatural thing for the thought to flash 
across me: 

“ Well, now Captain Holiday will hear that ! He’ll 
know that I am not a complete imbecile at my job after 
all, even if he did go away this afternoon before he saw 
that I had got over my nervousness ! ” — for the whole 
of the Lodge party had disappeared towards the farm 
before I had begun upon my second cow. “ He’ll have 
to think that I am some sort of a credit to him after all 
the tips lie’s given me. And perhaps he will say so to 
Muriel, even if he is in love with her.” 

And then I put away those thoughts. 

As Elizabeth and I tramped back to camp with the 
glad news that we were now fully fledged Land-workers, 
I turned resolutely to the future and the new job. 

The little organizing secretary had promised to let 


190 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


us know in a day or two what she had settled for us. 
She had also promised to arrange that Elizabeth and 
I should be sent somewhere together. 

For the meantime we were to stay where we were in 
camp, as it seemed scarcely worth while to move us to 
the depot. The secretary said she was almost certain 
she had got us our job — at a rectory with a farm 
attached. It was at the other side of the county. 

66 That’s a good thing ! ” thought I. 

I did not say so to Elizabeth. I hadn’t confided a 
word to Elizabeth of what I felt. I had taken my con- 
fidence away from the once-intimate chum. 

And then suddenly her confidence returned to me; 
in fact, I had it as I’d never had it before. 

It was on the afternoon after we’d passed our tests 
— Sunday. (On t^ie Monday we were to hear for cer- 
tain about that new job of ours.) I’d missed Elizabeth 
shortly after the midday meal, and I found her in that 
old haunt of hers on the wall under the bushes. 

Crouched up there she was sobbing as if her heart 
would break. 

I was afraid she would be furious that I’d come upon 
her like this. 

But the unexpected happened. She turned and clung 
to me. 

“ Oh, Joan ! I am so unhappy,” she sobbed. “ Oh, 
it’s so awful. We are going away from this place, and 
I shall never, never see him again ! ” 


CHAPTER XXI 


THE MAN-HATER DISCUSSES MEN 

“Man delights not me.’’ — S hakespeare. 

“ And the taable staained wi’ his aale, an’ the mud o’ ’is hoots o’ 
the stairs, 

An’ the stink o’ ’is pipe i’ the ’ouse, an’ the mark o’ ’is ’ead o’ 
the chairs!” 

— Tennyson. 

I DIDN’T ask for any explanation. 

I had the sense not to show any surprise at 
the self-abandonment of this usually so sturdily 
reserved little chum of mine. 

I just plumped down on the stones beside her and 
slipped my arm about the sobbing little overalled body. 
I suppose it comforted her. For presently she left off 
sobbing, drew a long breath, blew her nose, and began, 
in a resigned little voice, to open out her whole heart to 
me. 

“ You know who I mean, Joan? ” 

“ Yes, old kid.” 

The name of “ Colonel Fielding ” seemed to hang in 
the air above us as tangibly as those hazel boughs 
against the sky, but neither of us uttered it. 

In rueful little spurts the truth began to gush from 
the once silent and matter-of-fact Elizabeth. 

“I guessed you’d guess. Oh, Joan! I’m idiotic 
191 


192 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


about him. Crazy! As silly about him as you ever 
were about your precious Harry in London. 

“ I used to laugh at you ! ” 

“ Everybody starts by laughing at people in love,’* 
I said, settling myself on that wall. “ And everybody 
ends by being quite as silly themselves. You’re no worse 
than anybody else.” 

“ Yes I am, much,” declared Elizabeth. 

“ Why ? Because you’ve always thought you couldn’t 
like men, and now you find you can? ” 

“ No! ” declared Elizabeth, shaking still more vigor- 
ously. “ I still can’t like ‘ men.’ It is still true 
enough about that. I still hate them! . . . You don’t 
mind my talking, do you? I’ve bottled myself up so 
ever since I met him. But as for 4 men ’ ” 

She talked, setting out plainly and sincerely what I 
do believe is the attitude of a certain type of girl. 

* * * * * * * 

Men seldom hear it. If they do, they disbelieve it. 
But let them — if any of them are reading this story 
— be reminded that this point of view exists. Here’s 
its creed as told me by my bonniest and best of little 
pals, Elizabeth Weare. 

I’d heard lots of it, in scraps, already. Tonight, 
when she was stirred and troubled, I got it in swathes, 
which I scarcely interrupted. 

“ I don’t think men are amusing,” she declared. 
66 Perhaps I have no sense of humour. If it is sense of 
humour that makes their smoking-room stories funny, 
I am glad I haven’t. They think those' stories funny, 


THE MAN-HATER DISCUSSES MEN 193 


I think them far-fetched ; as if they’d been thought out 
with lots of trouble. It’s not the improperness of them 
that I mind, those that are supposed to be so 4 naughty.’ 
It's the ugly sort of pictures they nearly always make . 
Think of any you know; don’t they mean something 
rather horrid to look at? Men haven’t enough imag- 
ination to see that’s what one hates. Men laugh at 
those ‘jokes,’ with a noise like the Prices’ old Jack, 
braying. And they tell some of them to their wives. 
And the wives pass them on. And the girls tell me; 
pretty girls, with their soft red mouths, repeat these 
hideous stupid Limericks and things. And I feel like 
crying , Joan. Only I have to laugh, or they’d think 
I didn’t understand. What I do understand is that 
every time Vve been put a little bit more off men! 

“ Then, I think men are dull. They don’t hear what 
you say quickly enough. They don’t see what it means 
half the time. And they aren’t noticing what’s going 
on around them. They’re wrapped in a fog of news- 
paper print and tobacco. They’re slow. Slow! 

“ I think men are so ugly, too. Look at them in 
omnibuses and trains. Look at them anywhere! Are 
they attractive? Not to me. I don’t like their nubbly 
knuckles and their huge feet (not that I need talk in 
these land boots, but still) — I can’t bear those great 
wrists they have. I hate their horrid skins where they 
shave — all nutmeg-graters ! How any girl wants to 
be kissed by them I don’t know. I don’t suppose she 
does really; it’s just the Idea. Bristly moustaches, 
too. Awful ! 


194 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


44 They do such hideous things, men. What can be 
more revolting than the sight of one of them knocking 
out a dirty, smelly black pipe? Or wolfing down a 
plateful of half-raw steak? Or mopping up — as they 
call it — a fat pint of beer out of a pewter pot? I 
could not love one after seeing him do those things ! ” 
declared Elizabeth. 

44 Yet women do, my dear,” I reminded her. 44 They 
like a man to be even rather rough-hewn and coarse- 
fibred, so that he is unlike them. They don’t mind his 
smelling of tobacco, and wearing scratchy tweeds, and 
tanks on his feet. They like him rugged. I — I speak 
for myself and for the majority of girls, I think. They 
like him 4 manly.’ ” 

44 Heavens ! ” ejaculated Elizabeth, with equal fervour 
and truth in her voice. 44 How I do loathe what they 
call 6 a manly man ’ ! All lumps, and a bull’s voice, and 
irregular features ! ” 

46 But,” I suggested mildly, 44 you wouldn’t want a 
man to look like the picture off a chocolate-box lid? ” 

44 1 should adore it,” declared this exception in girls. 
44 When I was a little girl, once, I was given a box of 
sweets with a picture on the lid called 4 The Falconer.’ 
He wore a golden-brown hunting-dress and he had a 
hawk on his shoulder, and golden hair and soft eyes, 
and, oh ! such a pretty face ! I thought at the time, 
4 If only I could ever see a young man looking like that 
Falconer ! ’ And now I have. Colonel Fielding is ex- 
actly like that picture. Oh, Joan, I think he’s the most 
beautiful thing I’ve seen.” 


THE MAN-HATER DISCUSSES MEN 195 


How true it is that when a really reserved person 
breaks down the barriers it will babble out ten times 
more than some one who is more expansive in every-day 
life! 

I, for instance, should never have dreamt of calling 
any young man “ the most beautiful thing I’d seen.” 
Not Harry, handsome as he was. Not Captain Holi- 
day, though he was good-looking enough for any girl 
to rave over; manly good looks, too. Very different 
from the namby-pamby prettiness of Elizabeth’s young 
Colonel! Personally, I considered that it would take 
more than his D. S. 0. and the devotion of his men to 
their officer to make one forget that he could dress up 
and look exactly like a girl ! 

Yet here was the boyish, resolute, no-nonsense-about- 
her Elizabeth glorying in the fact ! 

Again the force of Contrast, I supposed. 

Well! Well, if the Man-hater were drawn to him I 
could only hope it was for her happiness. She didn’t 
look happy at the moment, sitting there on that wall, 
her chin on her knees and her hands hugging her gait- 
er ed legs. 

“ To think,” she mourned, “ that at last I’ve met the 
sort of man that I could care for — even I who never 
do care for them ! — and that it’s no good ! ” 

“ Why 6 no good,’ my dear? Because we’re going 
away? But he’s not going to stay in Careg himself 
for ever! Besides, he’ll write to you. He always did 
about the flat, and he will more now,” I comforted her. 
“ I know he likes you.” 


196 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


With her characteristic gesture my chum shook her 
head till her hair danced about her face. 

“ He does like you,” I persisted. “ I saw it when 
he met you first ! And at the concert he threw that red 
carnation straight for you to catch ! I suppose you’ve 
kept it ? ” 

A rueful laugh from Elizabeth, a movement of her 
hand to the breast of her smock. Kept it? It was her 
treasure. Oh, yes. She’d got it badly. 

“ Besides,” I went on, “ he met you. He came to talk 
to you. He wanted to see you ” 

“He used to! But not now!” broke despairingly 
from the little figure on the wall. “ That’s the worst 
of it ! To begin with, he — he did like me ! I was al- 
most sure of it ! But not since that girl came down here 
to take him from me ! ” 

“ Which girl? ” 

In a tone of passionate despair Elizabeth pronounced 
the name. 

“Muriel Elvey!” 

“ Muriel — oh, my dear girl, no. That’s absurd.” 

But nothing would persuade Elizabeth that it wasn’t 
true. She had seen Muriel, who was so lovely that every 
man must fall in love with her. She had seen her at 
the concert, where Colonel Fielding was talking to her 
every minute that he was not singing. She’d seen her 
at the Tests, still with Colonel Fielding in attendance. 
She, Miss Elvey, was staying at The Lodge, where 
Colonel Fielding was also staying. Oh ! Elizabeth 
knew what would happen. 


THE MAN-HATER DISCUSSES MEN 197 

I wished I did! Personally, I thought it very un- 
likely that Muriel meant to look at Colonel Fielding; 
but was she going to marry her host, Captain Holiday? 
In the meantime she was causing the bitterest jealousy 
to both me and my poor little chum ! 

To think that this was Elizabeth who had strafed me 
about fretting over what any young man had said or 
done ! 

“ I wish I hadn’t come,” she mourned ; “ and now it 
will almost kill me to go.” 

Here she stopped, starting as if shot. She lifted 
her head from her knees and sprang off the low wall. 

There had been a rustling of the leaves that I’d 
thought was the breeze; but Elizabeth had heard and 
recognized the light footstep that accompanied that 
rustling. 

Another moment and there appeared before us the 
slim figure and half-girlish face of the man who was the 
cause of all this agitation. 

I looked hard at him as he saluted and said “ How 
do you do? ” 

He blushed — yes, he had that trick of blushing which 
camouflages some of the effrontery of some of the least 
diffident of men. I realized now that it was all a 
“ put-on ” — his quietness, his nervousness, his seeming 
shyness. 

“ Er — er — I’m so glad I happened to come across 
you,” he said. “ The fact is I’ve something I — I 
rather wanted to ask you — you two people.” 

How deprecatingiy he spoke, but what a gleam of 


198 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


mischief there was behind those ridiculously long lashes 
of his ! What did he really mean ? 

I saw him again as I’d seen him at that concert, 
dressed up in that successful imitation of a Spanish 
beauty, singing in a contralto that would have lured 
the bird from the tree, taking in half the audience by 
his mock “ glad eye ” at Captain Holiday, and finally 
tossing that red flower into the little brown paw of the 
Land Girl whom he most admired. Not too milk-and- 
watery, all that ! And as Elizabeth herself defended 
him later, “ It’s not by being namby-pamby that a man 
gets the D. S. O.” In spite of his distressingly — to 
me — pretty-pretty appearance, there were depths in 
this idol of Elizabeth’s. 

Now what had he come to say? 

“ Er,” he began, “ I’ve heard you finished your train- 
ing and are going away from here.” 

“ Yes, we’re off on Monday,” Elizabeth said quite 
steadily. 

He tapped against a moss-covered stick with his 
cane, and went on, as if shyly : 

“ Er — Holiday told me something of the sort. Do 
— do you like the job you’re going to? ” 

“ We don’t know yet,” said I, cheerfully enough. 
“ I expect we shall.” 

“ Oh ! Holiday didn’t know — that is, I expect Holi- 
day might be rather annoyed if he thought I’d said any- 
thing to you about this,” returned this maddeningly 
puzzling young man. “ But, still, it was an idea of his. 


THE MAN-HATER DISCUSSES MEN 199 


And — er — I don’t see how he could find out if he didn’t 
ask you himself, do you? ” 

Together Elizabeth and I demanded, “ Ask us 
what ? ” 

“ Well, Holiday wondered if you two would care to 
stay on at the farm,” suggested Captain Fielding. 

I saw Elizabeth’s head go up. 

“Stay on?” I echoed. “But we’ve finished our 
training ! ” 

“ Er — yes. But the Prices want two more land- 
workers to take the places of two more men they’ve had 
called up. And Holiday thought that — er — since 
they’re pleased with you, and you’ve got through the 
exam. — well, it could be managed,” concluded Colonel 
Fielding, diffidently. “ It depends upon whether you’d 
like to stay on jobs there. Would you? ” 

Here was a question ! 

To go — or to stay on? 

In less time than it takes you to read about it I’d re- 
volved it rapidly in my own mind as I stood there by 
that wall under the hazels, glancing from Elizabeth 
to the young officer who had made the suggestion. 

To go meant good-bye to so many things I’d come 
to care for. Good-bye to the Prices, the gentle giant 
and his dainty wife, to whom her silvered hair gave 
the look of a little French marquise; good-bye to their 
kindliness and interest — not every land-worker finds 
employers as helpful and as considerate. However 
charming the Rectory people might turn out to be I 


200 A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 

could not hope that they would come up to these kind 
people. 

It meant good-bye to the Practice Farm, of which 
I’d become attached to every field, every distant view, 
every shed — even the celebrated cow-house that I’d 
cleaned out on that first morning! Good-bye to the 
merry midday meals in the jolly kitchen! Good-bye 
to the dear old white mare, and the cows who now knew 
me well! Good-bye to the morning tramp to work 
through the dew-spangled, ferny lanes ! Good-bye, too, 
to the life in camp; good-bye to Vic, the irresistible 
Cockney, to Sybil, and little Peggy with her “ I’m 
astonished at you ! ” — to Curley, to the red-haired Ag- 
gie with her rich Welsh voice, and to the young fore- 
woman who had mothered the whole mixed lot of us ! 

We had been one big family; I had found sisters of 
every class and kind. Now I had to leave them all, 
after sharing their life and their hearts, for six unfor- 
gettable weeks. To part — with the chance that we 
should never meet again ! It’s the fate that breaks up 
so many a cheery mess, both in the Army and the Land 
Army ! To go meant all this. 

But to stay meant, for me, seeing Captain Holiday 
still. How could I grow to forget him and thrust him 
out of my mind, as I hoped, if I knew that round any 
corner I should meet him still, the golden-and-white 
collie trailing at his heels ? How could I grow resigned 
and philosophical, and all those things which I meant to 
be, if I had the constant pain of seeing him with Muriel? 
(The Elveys, by the way, seemed to be staying on in- 


THE MAN-HATER DISCUSSES MEN 201 


definitely at the Lodge.) Oh, I thought that to stay 
was the very worst thing I could do for myself ! 

But then I hadn’t only myself to think about. 

At the very sound of the words “ stay on ” I’d seen 
Elizabeth’s small face lighted up as if by a ray of sun- 
shine from within. She’d turned it hastily away again. 
But well I knew what her sentiments were ! 

So I decided in an instant. 

66 Oh ! If it could be arranged ! Of course we’d both 
prefer to stay on here. We’ll stay!” I said, without 
hesitating. 

Enormous relief appeared in the very tilt of Eliza- 
beth’s Board of Agriculture hat. As for the young 
Colonel — what did he think or feel? Was he inter- 
ested in my little infatuated chum, or wasn’t he? Was 
he just another slave at the chariot wheels of the all- 
conquering Muriel? And what had he said to Captain 
Holiday about our staying here? Or had it been the 
other young man’s idea? Afterwards I wondered very 
much about this. 

Why had Captain Holiday thought of us? The 
Practice Farm was on his land but what had the actual 
working of it got to do with him, he being merely down 
in this part of the country on sick leave like his friend, 
Colonel Fielding? 

Further, I wondered how much longer Muriel and her 
mother would be here, and when the coy, uncertain, and 
hard-to-please Muriel would make up her mind whom 
she wanted to marry? 


CHAPTER XXII 


HAY-HARVEST 


“Go see the wholesome country girls make hay, 

Whose brown hath lovelier grace 
Than many a painted face. 

That I do know 
Hyde Park can show.” 

LL these questions were still there, unanswered, 
a fortnight later. 



That date found Elizabeth and me settled as 
permanent Land-workers under our friend Mr. Price, 
but still living in camp, whence we walked to our work. 
It found Curley gone; she had taken the Rectory job; 
Sybil, too, was away. She had got the post of garden- 
ing girl at a country house outside Careg that supplied 
the hospital with extra vegetables. The Elveys were 
still at the Lodge, for poor Mrs. Elvey had had a rheu- 
matic attack and could not move. Very probably, 
thought I with a pang, Miss Muriel did not want to 
move ! 

All this marked the date of the beginning of one of 
the farm’s biggest days — the gathering in of the sec- 
ond hay crop. 

I shall never forget this as one of the greatest 
scrambles that I’ve ever rushed through. A “ thick 
day ” at the office was nothing to it ! 


202 


HAY-HARVEST 


203 


It was intensely hot. The sky was cloudless, not 
blue, but a sultry mauve. 

Now at dinner-time Mr. Price strode in on his in- 
ordinately long legs that he had given no rest since 
early morn ; his blue eyes were alert and excited. 

“ The glass is going down,” he said. “ And I heard 
thunder beyond the town. I’ll tell you what. I believe 
it’ll be a race between a big storm — and us getting in 
that field of hay ! ” 

Little Mrs. Price lifted her tiny, dignified face as she 
sat at table. 

“ We’ll have to do it then,” said she. “ Everybody 
will help.” 

“ Everybody it’ll have to be,” declared Mr. Price, 
dispatching his dinner full speed ahead. “ Everybody 
on the farm. And I’ll see if some of the wounded boys 
can take a hand. And you get every one of the work- 
men’s wives, too. Tell them to leave their washing, 
leave their baking, bring their babies to the corner of 
the field and all come ! ” 

Off went Mrs. Price to mobilize these volunteers. Out 
we dashed — the Regulars. 

It was indeed all hands to the pumps — that breath- 
less afternoon. 

The big field seemed to hold half Careg ; farm hands, 
old men, boys in hospital blue, rosy-faced women in sun- 
bonnets — these last were the workmen’s wives whom 
Mrs. Price had fetched. They worked like niggers. 
And as we toiled the air grew more breathless ; the pale 
mauve of the sky deepened to an angry indigo, and far 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


204 

away we heard a muttering of thunder. The storm was 
gathering slowly. 

I felt myself becoming part of a regiment, part of a 
willing machine that walked quickly down the rows rak- 
ing the fragrant swathes. 

Should we do it? Should we get in that hay in time, 
beat the on-rolling field-grey clouds that were coming 
up, massed like German divisions? 

It was exciting. It was for the moment the most 
important thing in the world that that field should be 
cleared before the thunder-rain came on to spoil all. 

I raked, handling the rake with ease and rhythm; 
I scarcely realized who walked just in front of me, or 
that the two shirt-sleeved figures — one with an ab- 
surdly slim waist ! — were Captain Holiday and Colonel 
Fielding. 

Steadily the storm was coming up, but steadily we 
worked. 

“ We shall do it ! ” declared little Mrs. Price, as she 
passed me once, “ we shall have time for tea and all ! ” 

Presently, as I raked in front of the road-gate, I saw 
our organizing secretary fling herself off her bicycle and 
run up. 

“ Mrs. Price ! ” she called. “ What can I do to 
help? ” 

“ Cut bread and butter if you like ! ” laughed the 
farmer’s wife. 66 It’s tea-time, and we’ve earned it ! 
I’m just going to bring out a white cloth and two big 
loaves, and a huge bowl of butter, and the kettle, and 
tea in bags! Yes, come on! ” 


HAY-HARVEST 


205 


Twenty minutes later the last load of hay was 
carried. The haymakers sat down on the grass 
in the corner of the field to feast their achievement, 
farm folk groups and little clusters, friends, families 
together. Mr. Price seated himself in triumph on 
the cutter, waving a cup at the threatening purple 
skies. 

“ We’ve done it ! ” he cried. “ We have, indeed ! ” 

I had cast myself down in the nearest shady patch, 
had thrown off my hat, and dried my streaming fore- 
head. Life was extraordinarily good at that moment; 
I felt it surging in fulness through every vein. I was 
heated and spent for the instant ; but how happy ! 
Work is an anodyne; but it must be the right kind of 
work. This had been splendid. I’d forgotten every- 
thing else! 

I stuffed my handkerchief into my sleeve, and came 
to myself to find that in my shady corner I was one of 
a group of four. 

Elizabeth had thrown herself down close beside me. 
Next to her the slim Colonel had sat down. Opposite 
to me, holding out bread and butter on a large burdock 
leaf, was Captain Holiday. 

The quartette of us devoured our tea together with 
an enjoyment which was, as Captain Holiday presently 
said through a mouthful, barely decent ! 

“ Why ? ” demanded Colonel Fielding, with that mis- 
leading diffidence of his. “ Why shouldn’t we — er — 
en j oy this ? I — I may tell you that this ” — he drank 
more tea, reached for another hunk of bread and butter, 


206 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


and looked sideways at Elizabeth — “ this is going to 
represent one of the meals of my life ! ” 

I said, rather tritely, “ That’s because you worked so 
hard for it! ” 

“ Oh — er — no. I don’t think I like anything I’ve 
deserved,” said this young man, with (outward) mild- 
ness. Much faith I put in that as he began on his 
fourth hunk, eating by tiny mouthfuls as he must have 
been taught in the nursery. “ Anything one’s earned 
makes one feel — er — one doesn’t want it any more. 
At least, I feel like that ” 

“ Not often, my dear chap,” put in his friend, Cap- 
tain Holiday, brusquely. “ If you were dependent upon 
what you earned or deserved — by gad, you would be 
fairly destitute ! ” 

Now it always amuses me the way in which men will 
show warm regard for a special chum by insulting him 
in public. But Elizabeth, over her white japanned mug 
of tea, shot a really furious glance at the man who 
had dared to say this thing to her idol ! 

Colonel Fielding just laughed through those eye- 
lashes, nodded good-naturedly at his friend, and took 
up the conversation again as he lounged on the grass. 

Hoping for Elizabeth’s sake that what he said might 
tell something about him, I prepared to listen to every 
word of it ! 


CHAPTER XXIII 


COLONEL FIELDING DISCUSSES 44 ENJOYMENT ” 

N OW, as we sat in that field, between the blond 
stubble and lowering purple sky, there was 
one thing the others didn’t guess. 

I wouldn’t have changed places with a Queen. Just 
to be so near Captain Holiday, rested and feasting 
after work, was sheer joy to me. He would never know. 

But it was odd to find his friend, Colonel Fielding, 
suddenly putting my thoughts into words ! 

He repeated his own words of a moment before. 

44 Yes, this is one of 4 the ’ feasts,” he said softly. 
44 Tea and bread and butter in a hayfield. And — er 
— absolutely topping. It’s Enjoyment; pukka . It’s 
what people are always chasing. They flock to — er 
— the most expensive restaurants in town for this. 
They go on to boxes at theatres, supper clubs. It’s 
what they order champagne for. Jazz bands. Dress- 
ing up to the nines. All to get it ! They — er — they 
don’t get it,” murmured the young Colonel, in his meek- 
est of meek voices. 44 You can’t buy it. It comes to 
you — or it doesn’t. Fact.” 

Nobody said anything. Fielding continued : 

44 When people look back on the best time they’ve 
ever had, they don’t find that those are the times that 
— er — that have swallowed up every stiver at Cox’s. 
No. Nor the times when they set out deliberately to do 
207 


208 A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 

Y 

themselves well, and — er — dash the expense. No! 
As often as not, that is a wash-out. Er — I don’t 
know why. But somehow the best time nearly always 
comes down to something that costs hardly anything.” 

Captain Holiday, smoking, gave a sort of non-com- 
mittal grunt. 

Meanwhile Elizabeth was listening spellbound to the 
homily on Life’s Good Times, given by the young officer, 
who talked as if he were the shyest of the shy — but 
whose shyness did not stop him from holding forth. 

“ A woman once told me,” the Colonel began again. 

Here I saw Elizabeth prick up her ears even more, if 
possible ! 

The Colonel saw it too. The smile he gave might 
have been the smile of some coquette who, deliberately 
“ playing ” her lover, sees him “ rise.” Ah, if Eliza- 
beth looked like that Princess who on her bridal-night 
was metamorphosed into a lad, this slim Colonel might 
have been the bridegroom who, to keep her love, was be- 
witched in turn into becoming a Princess. . . . 

He went on: 

“ Yes, a woman who’s taught me rather a lot about 
women once told me that the most delightful lunch of 
her life was — er — was in a poisonous little musty 
coffee-room of a country pub.” 

Here Captain Holiday put in : “ What induced you 

to take her there? ” 

A gleam of mischief behind the Colonel’s lashes, but 
no reply to this. 


DISCUSSES “ ENJOYMENT ” 


209 


“ It was stuffy with the smell of bygone chops,” he 
enlarged dreamily. 44 It was hung with huge dark oil- 
paintings of spaniels, and horses, and wild duck and 
things, and there were umpteen hulking sauceboats on 
each sideboard ; all very plated and dirty ” 

44 How fascinating,” snapped Elizabeth. 

44 The table decorations,” pursued Colonel Fielding, 
44 were five napkins arranged as mitres and a tall 4 fluted 
ruby ’ glass vase full of dead daffodils ” 

44 May one ask what the unfortunate lady was given 
to eat? 99 

44 She was given cold ham, Miss Weare, tinned apri- 
cots, and black Indian tea at three o’clock in the 
afternoon ” 

44 How extraordinarily nasty,” sniffed Elizabeth, ob- 
viously wrung with jealousy of the woman who had thus 
lunched. 

Deprecatingly, Colonel Fielding smiled. 44 This 
woman told me,” he said, 44 that she knew now what 
was meant by the expression 4 A Priceless Binge.’ It 
was that lunch. She would not have exchanged a 
crumb of it for two years of living at the Ritz.” 

How well I understood that woman’s point of view! 
I opened my mouth to say so ; then I saw that Captain 
Holiday, leaning up on his elbow on the grass, was 
watching me hard behind a cloud of smoke. 

Why? Curiosity again? I said nothing. 

44 1 suppose that woman meant that the person she 
was lunching with made all the difference in the world 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


210 

to her ? ” said Elizabeth, whose small, brown paw had 
been pulling quite viciously at the grass during these 
last remarks, in the voice of bravado. 

“ Well,” he replied, “ I believe that she did happen 
to be lunching at the time with 4 the person ’ she cared 
rather a lot about. He was — er — an old love or 
something she hadn’t seen for ages. At least — I think 
it must have been that.” 

“You ‘think’!” I said exasperated. “You don’t 
know? ” 

“ No,” returned the young Colonel, “ I couldn’t ask 
her, could I ? ” 

“ Why not? ” demanded Captain Holiday, with his 
abruptness. 

“ How could I ask her if she didn’t choose to tell 
me ? ” Colonel Fielding answered very gently. 

Here I thought there had been enough of this hair- 
splitting; besides, I couldn’t bear to see Elizabeth’s 
afternoon being spoilt. 

So, bluntly and directly, I blurted out : 

“ But, Colonel Fielding, wasn’t it you that this wo- 
man was having lunch with when she said that? ” 

“ I? ” He opened his eyes at me just as Muriel might 
have done, and I thought exasperatedly what a lot of 
girl’s tricks he had. Still, one girl adored him for them. 
I saw poor Elizabeth sitting there doing it at that mo- 
ment. 

“I?” he said. “Oh, no. I — er — wasn’t there, 
that time. I wasn’t — the fact is I wasn’t born. My 
mother only told me about it lately.” 


DISCUSSES “ ENJOYMENT ” 


211 

Elizabeth stopped pulling up the stubble with a jerk, 
and at the same moment I said sharply, 44 Your mother 

— but what’s your mother got to do with it, Colonel 
Fielding? ” 

44 She was the woman who had lunch,” explained the 
young man simply. 44 She — er — is the woman who’s 
taught me most things, I think. I always think men 
might learn more from their mothers than any other 
woman allows ’em to — er — know. 'You'll get a 
sweetheart any day , hut not anothah mothali! ' D’you 
know that song, Miss Weare? ” 

Villain ! He had simply been 44 trying it on,” 44 play- 
ing up ” ! He was quite 44 up ” to the fact of Eliza- 
beth’s jealousy. And now he was equally 44 up ” to the 
look of exquisite relief that was lighting her up again 

— just as it had done when she found she was not to go 
away after all. 

All this, I thought, was cruel. 

I turned to Captain Holiday, who was just laugh- 
ing — at this rate I should soon change places with my 
chum. I should become the Man-Hater. Men were 
too irritating, too little worth all this trouble and affec- 
tion that we lavish upon them ! 

But, in the meantime, we had forgotten the storm. 
Suddenly it broke out, deafeningly, over our heads. 

44 Ah ! ” exclaimed Captain Holiday sharply, spring- 
ing to his feet. 

We followed his example. 

44 Here it is,” he cried. 44 The storm ! ” 


CHAPTER XXIV 


STORM 

“Lightning may come, straight rains and tiger sky.” 

— Meredith. 

I TURNED up my face. Splash! came the first 
huge thunder drop upon it. 

“ Run for it. Run for the farm ! ” exclaimed 
both the men. I saw Coionel Fielding’s slender hand 
dart out and catch that sunburnt paw of Elizabeth’s as 
they dashed after the farmer’s wife. Hand in hand 
they ran over the field like children, laughing like chil- 
dren too — and I knew this would be another of “ the ” 
moments of life to my little chum. 

I was legging it after them when I was stopped as if 
by a shot. From behind me there was a sharp cry. 
“Joan! Joan!” 

I turned to the corner under the elms where we had 
been picnicking. Every one had left it in their dash for 
cover before the rain came on. Only Captain Holiday 
was there; he stood, his back to the biggest elm, his 
hands spread out behind him on the trunk, his face 
ghastly white. 

“Joan!” he called like a child. 

I ran back to him. 

“What’s the matter?” I asked anxiously. “Has 
your knee let you down ? ” — I knew that one of his 
212 


STORM 


213 


wounds had been in the knee — “ Where are you hurt? ” 

6i I’m not hurt,” he said, and tried to smile. “ Only 
I ” 

Crashing thunder drowned his voice. Then I saw an 
odd thing happen. His whole body seemed to shrink 
and flatten itself against that tree. He caught his 
hands away from the bark and covered his face. He 
was in an agony. 

I hurried to him. He clutched my arm. 

“ Don’t go,” he muttered. " I say, I’m mad sorry, 
but I can’t help it. I thought I was right again. I’ve 
been like this ever since the Somme. Those guns — I’m 
afraid you’ll have to stay with me. I can’t move from 
here yet. You see I ” 

Crash! came the thunder just above us again. He 
shook as it rolled away. Then in a whisper that seemed 
torn from him I heard him say: “I’m frightened of 
that.” 

I could have cried. For in a flash as of the light- 
ning now playing above the hills I seemed to under- 
stand all. 

Shell-shock! This healthy and normal young man 
had been through every horror of war, and I knew how 
bravely. Some of the wounded soldiers at the hospital 
had been in his old company; they had had plenty of 
tales to tell. He was as plucky as any lion — but he 
was “ done in ” now. Thunder, that brought back to 
him the guns of that hell in which he had been last 
wounded, found him paralysed and helpless with shock. 

I took both his hands. 


214 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


“ I’ll stay with you,” I said as comfortingly as I 
could. “ Come to the other side of the tree, it’s abso- 
lutely sheltered there.” I sat down, leaning against 
the trunk. “ Sit down by me.” 

I remembered how often I had been told as a child 
not to shelter under trees in a thunderstorm, but what 
else was there to do? 

The big warm thunder-drops, that had been coming 
one by one, were now pattering faster and faster on the 
leaves. Again the thunder crashed; Captain Holiday 
crouched up close to me. I found myself slipping my 
arm about his neck — he was trembling. What else 
could I do? I heard him say “Thank you, dear.” 
And he put his head down on my shoulder. He buried 
his brown face against my overall when the next crash 
came. 

Yes ! He clung to me for comfort as if there were no 
other help for him in the world. At that moment there 
was no other. 

What a half-hour ! I felt I must be dreaming. 
Could it be I, Joan Matthews, Land' Girl, who was sit- 
ting there? Yes ; here was my own over ailed arm round 
the quite solid-feeling neck of the young man ; it was my 
own shoulder against which his head was refuged. Once 
I was nearly, nearly sure I felt his lips against the rough 
holland of my smock — but that was a chance touch. 
Once I iound myself wishing wildly that the storm need 
never stop, and that I could stay here like this for ever, 
not moving, not speaking ! 

To speak would mean a drop out of the seventh 


STORM 


215 


heaven and back to Britain in war-time, to a world full 
of disappointments — and Muriel. 

Even Muriel would never be able to take this one little 
half-hour from me when I had been Dick Holiday’s only 
help in distress, when he had just once said “Dear” 
to me ; even if he hardly knew in his agitation to whom he 
was speaking! 

I should always have one perfect memory. 

It was he who spoke first, in the lull that came after 
thunder that seemed now receding. 

He lifted his head at last, and said huskily: 

“ Joan, I’m afraid you’ll think I’m the limit. I mean 
you’ll never think anything of me again ! Cold feet — a 
coward ! ” 

“A coward? You? ” I retorted. 

Tears rushed into my eyes again. I was red with 
conflicting emotions. 

The young soldier beside me was still pale. I looked 
at his downcast face. 

“ You think I think you’re the kind of man who gets 
cold feet? ” I cried. 

My voice shook with reproach. 

“ Oh ! ” I exclaimed, “ how horrid of you to say such 
a thing.” 

At this he sat up straight under that tree and looked 
at me. A more normal expression came over his face. 

“ Horrid? ” he echoed. 

And then in quite his own brusque, ragging voice he 
declared : 

“ Mention any subject on earth to a woman, and she’ll 


21 6 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


always find the unexpected comment. Always ! Any- 
how, this woman will. I don’t understand why you’ve 
just called me ‘horrid,’ Joan!” 

“ You don’t understand me at all when you think I 
understand so little,” I said bitterly. “ As if I didn’t 
realize what it meant for a man to be wrecked by shell- 
shock. As if I thought it was the same thing as his 
being frightened, cowardly ! Good heavens ! As if I 
didn’t know how you’d behaved out in France, Captain 
Holiday? ” 

Resentfully I wound up : “ But you will persist in 

thinking me a fool ! ” I said bitterly. 

Now he was quite himself again. 

“Why should I think you a fool? ” he barked. 

“ I don’t know ! ” I barked in return. 

Staring at the now abating rain, I suggested sharply : 
“ Perhaps you laugh at me for being on land work at 
all? ” 

Captain Holiday turned, looked hard at me. I 
thought he would snap again. Instead of that he re- 
plied gently. 

“Land work? Honestly I think its the noblest 
work women can do today.” 

He glanced at the hayfield, cleared only that after- 
noon, gleaming under the rain. 

“Cramped occupations, unhealthy city life, flat 
chests, specialists’ fees — all swept away ! ” he said 
musingly. “ Land work -would help us to that, you 
know. Land work would give us rosier wives, better 
babies ” — then he turned upon me with his abruptest 


STORM 217 

question — “ I suppose you think it’s odd of me to think 
of such things ? ” 

66 Certainly not. I agree with every word you say,” 
I assured him. “ Only ” 

I was thinking of Muriel. Land work and she were 
as the poles apart, yet he loved her (or so I was driven 
to suppose). And yet he clung to his ideals of a coun- 
try life! 

“ Only — what? ” he took me up. “ What were you 
going to say ? 99 

“ That girl you spoke to me about the other evening,” 
I said, “ that girl who won’t say either 6 Yes 9 or ‘ No 9 
to you — 6 the ’ girl — what does she think about all 
this? ” 

He paused for a moment and glanced at the sky. 

Presently he turned those grey and friendly eyes of 
his upon me again. They smiled very sweetly as he 
answered my question. 

66 She? Oh! She thinks as I’d like her to think.” 

So then I knew he must be completely under Muriel’s 
sway. That lovely, super-civilized girl could “ take him 
in ” about her views on any subject. If she wanted 
him to believe that she hated town and luxury and 
only loved roughing it on the land, he would believe her. 

He was all hers ! 

Suddenly chilled, and sore at heart, I got up. I took 
a step outside the shelter of those elms that had seen 
my wonderful half-hour. It was over, over. All over ! 


CHAPTER XXV 


AFTER THE RAIN 

“ And the world grew green in the blue.” 

Folk-song. 

“T T has stopped raining,” I said. “ What is the 
time?” 

He turned his wrist. 

“ A quarter past six,” he said. “You’re supposed 
to have knocked off? ” 

“ Yes, but I expect Elizabeth is waiting at the farm. 
Good-bye, Captain Holiday.” 

“ Good-bye ! ” But he was walking by my side across 
the field. “ I haven’t thanked you yet for being good 
to me.” 

“ Please don’t.” 

“ All right ! I won’t ! ” said he serenely. Striding 
by my side, he came on as far as the farmyard gate. 

He opened it for me. 

Then, leaning on the gate, he lingered. In quite his 
old manner he launched a question. 

“ D’vou miss town much? ” 

I laughed. 

All about me there went up that sweet incense of 
the country earth after rain; the ever-vivid colours of 
the Welsh landscape were heightened to brilliance ; each 
218 



Still leaning on the gate , Captain Holiday said: “ Vm 
glad the country won that toss ” 
































































































































AFTER THE RAIN 


219 


twig of the hedge had its hanging diamonds. Across 
the green breast of the hill behind the farm there lay, 
striped like a medal-ribbon, the end of the rainbow. 
Hope and gaiety smiled from every inch of the rain- 
washed country; and I echoed: “Miss town? Not 
now, thank you.” 

“ But you did at first, Joan.” 

“ Oh, yes,” I admitted. “ Badly.” 

“Then why did you ever leave it? I’ve often won- 
dered,” said Captain Holiday. “ Why did you come 
away ? ” 

I hesitated. How could I tell him about Harry? 

“ It was a toss-up whether I stayed or came,” I said. 

Still leaning on that gate, Captain Holiday said: 

“ I’m glad the country won that toss.” 

Sweet of him, and friendly! But it meant no more 
than mere friendliness. 

I fought down a sigh. 

“ Good-bye,” I said again. 

He did not move from the gate. He just went on 
with the conversation. 

“ So you came here ; left London. Sometimes one 
hates leaving — places, I mean, of course.” 

I said rather bitterly, “ Yes — places.” 

“ Not people? ” he took up, with a very quick tilt of 
his head. 

What could one say? I agreed. 

“ Oh, people are hard enough to leave sometimes.” 

“ Are they? ” he said, looking down at me. I could 
not meet his friendly eyes. I moved to go on. 


220 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


Then at last he took his arm from that gate and fol- 
lowed me through it, shutting it behind him. 

“ Perhaps there were people who were hard to leave in 
London? ” 

What right had he to say it? I was angry with him. 
Considering he had his own love-story to attend to, 
why should he question me still — try to find out how 
love had treated me? What business was it of his? 

Temper flamed up in me. 

“No! When I left town to join up there was no- 
body I minded leaving. Else I should not have left. 
The — the people I should have hated to leave had left 
themselves ! ” 

My voice grew harder as the memory of Harry Mark- 
ham surged back into my mind. Black eyes, red tabs, 
soft caressing voice that promised “ all things to all 
women,” tender ways — how I had adored him. And 
how completely that adoration had died away now! 

Oh, the unexpected things that happen in life ; nearly 
always in our own selves! But I didn’t intend to give 
any of that away to this other young man who stood 
beside me, quietly attentive to what I was saying, out- 
side that closed green door. 

I put out my hand ; but his was on the latch before 
me. He held it there as if he were just going to open 
it for me. 

“ Oh ! So 4 they ’ had left.” He took up, in his quiet 
steady voice. 

“ Yes,” I said defiantly. “ If you must know, and it 


AFTER THE RAIN 


seems as if you always must know everything about 
everybody ” 

“ Not everything,” he assured me seriously , 44 and not 
about everybody. Only some things, and about my 
— well, I can say we are friends, can’t IP ” 

This, of course, melted me again to him. I had to 
look away, back over the yard, the cloister-like sheds, 
the now-smiling country beyond. 

“Friends? Oh, yes,” I said. 

“ Then tell me what you were going to say when you 
began, 4 if you must know ’? ” 

Still looking away, I finished the sentence. 

“ If you must know,” I said, 44 4 they ’ sailed for 
Salonika days before I left London.” 

Very quickly he said . 

44 That was why you left? ” 

“ Yes,” I admitted. 

The main lines of the story were known to him now. 
I didn’t care. 

Speaking as lightly as I could, I said : 

44 Well ! That’s that. D’you think you’ve had 
enough questions answered for one day, Captain Holi- 
day?” 

44 4 Dick ’ is my name really,” he observed for the sec- 
ond time that day ; 44 and I’d like to ask one other ques- 
tion, if I may. Don’t imagine that I don’t know it’s 
neck my asking. I do know better. But I’m going to 
ask. Do you ” 

Even he hesitated for a moment. Then went on: 


222 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


44 Do you hear from — these people? ” 

44 These people in Salonika ? ” 

44 Yes. From him,” said Captain Holiday. 

There flashed into my head the thought that had I 
been Muriel I should have replied neither “ Yes ” nor 
44 No ” to this question. It’s the successful type of 
girl who always 44 keeps a man guessing ” about every- 
thing she does, or means, or is. But I was cursed from 
my cradle by the fairies with the quality of truthfulness. 
Out it came now. 

44 Write to me! No,” I replied definitely. 44 Not a 
line ! Not a word ! I shall never hear from him again. 
I shall probably never see him again as long as I live ! ” 

And to avoid being asked more questions on this sore 
subject, I looked meaningly at Captain Holiday’s hand 
holding the latch of the back door. At once he opened 
it. 

44 1 want to speak to the Prices,” he said, and fol- 
lowed me through the slate-paved scullery into the big 
light kitchen. 

It seemed full as a railway station of people gath- 
ered about the wood fire, sheltering or drying after that 
storm. 

On the settle a dainty but ruffled figure in pale mauve 
was sitting and holding out tiny silk-stockinged feet 
to the blaze ; her drenched white kid shoes stood on the 
range. Muriel caught in the wet ! 

She turned as I came in. 

44 Hullo, Joan ; talk of angels ! ” she said. 

Talk of angels, indeed. My eyes had flown past her 


AFTER THE RAIN 


to the man’s figure standing close to the fire that lighted 
up his red tabs. 

There he was, the very man of whom we had been talk- 
ing. The man of whom I’d said I should never see him 
again as long as I lived ! 

I was face to face again with Harry Markham ! 

* * * * 

After the first moment of blankest astonishment, I 
realized that this was not so very startling after all. 

Harry, here? 

Well, I knew he was back from Salonika. I knew 
he had a staff job in town. Town, after all, is still 
within a day’s journey from these depths of mid-Wales. 
I also knew that Captain Harry Markham had always 
had a bit of a reputation as 44 a leave-hog.” I need not 
be so amazed that he had secured a week’s freedom out 
of that old General of his. 

As to why he should spend it in Careg — well, I think 
trout-stream and a jolly little inn were the explanations 
that the young man offered in those first hectic mo- 
ments, filled by spasmodic hand-shaking and those in- 
evitable remarks of: 44 1 say, fancy coming across 
you here! ” and 44 You’re looking jolly fit,” and all the 
other things people say on these occasions, whether 
they are thinking about them or about something totally 
different, or wondering how soon they can get away. 

It was a curiously mixed crowd in the Prices’ hos- 
pitable kitchen ! 

It was like the collections of people you sometimes 
meet in a dream. I felt as if it were some dream that 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


224s 

brought me there to the man whom I had adored, with 
the man whom I adored now, and with the girl who had 
taken them both away from me ! 

With very mixed feelings I let myself down on a 
kitchen chair near the big grandfather clock. I felt 
as if I must be “ looking,” as Vic might have put it, 
“ all ways for daylight.” Fortunately nobody there 
had much time to notice me. 

There were Harry and Captain Holiday (“my 
cousin, you know, whose place this is!”) to be intro- 
duced by Muriel Elvey. (A characteristically ques- 
tioning look, here, from Captain Holiday at the new 
man; at whom he stared before whilst I was shaking 
hands.) 

Then I watched Harry being introduced to Colonel 
Fielding, who, by the way, had left Elizabeth’s side and 
was now sitting on the arm of the oaken settle by Muriel, 
in an attitude suggesting that she, Muriel, was the only 
girl to whom he’d paid any attention in his life. 
Wretch! It had wiped all the joy and sparkle out of 
my chum’s face once again. 

Then there was more tea suggested, more cigarettes 
handed round, spills lighted at that comforting blaze. 
I listened, just as detachedly as if I were in the audi- 
torium of a theatre, to the buzz of talk that went up 
around me — chatter about the hay-carrying, the re- 
cent storm, and the weather prospects for the morrow 
of which Mr. Price, looming tall against the window, 
seemed rather doubtful. 

“ Miss Elvey’s sweet little white shoes ! ” Mrs. Price’s 


AFTER THE RAIN 


225 


cheerful voice broke in. “ Don’t let them scorch. I 
do hope they are not ruined ” 

66 You will have to take to boots and leggings, yet, 
Miss Elvey,” demurely from the young Colonel. 

“ Oh, can you imagine me ! ” from Muriel, toasting 
her mauve-silk clad toes. “ Colonel Fielding, think of 
little me in those clodhopping things! Of course, I 
think it wonderful of people to wear them ! ” with a 
glance at Elizabeth. “ I ought really to be on the Land 
myself — now, why do you laugh, Mr. Price?” with a 
pout at the farmer. “ I believe you think I shouldn’t 
be very useful ! ” 

“ Well, indeed, I don’t think you would,” declared the 
gentle giant with an indulgent smile. “ Only orna- 
mental ! ” 

“ How horrid of you! I’ve a good mind to join up 
and show you! It’s only that I can’t leave mother. 
But I adore the country really, don’t I, Dick? I was 
longing to come and make hay. I brought Captain 
Markham out on purpose, and then the rain came and 
we had to fly in here. 

“ If you only knew how I admired all these splendid 
girls who are so brave and strong, and who simply don’t 
mind how they get themselves all burnt and rough for 
evening dress ! ” declared Muriel, with a glance at me as 
I sat mum. “ I should look a perfect fright ! I know 
I should ! ” twittered Muriel, glancing at Harry. 

I saw Harry smile back at Muriel as he’d often smiled 
at me. He murmured something about sunburn being 
sacrilege in some cases. 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


226 

Muriel laughed back. 

“ Of course, if you’re a man you can get as burnt as 
a brick and it doesn’t matter,” she said. “ You’re so 
brown I hardly knew you at the station ! ” Then casu- 
ally to me: “Joan, don’t you think Harry’s got 
frightfully much thinner and sunburnt since he went 
out to Salonika? ” 

At that word I met Captain Holiday’s clear straight 
glance. 

It was directly upon me. 

I saw that he’d seen. He knew! Yes! He’d 
tumbled to it that this Captain Markham who had lately 
come from Salonika was the man to whom I’d referred 
as “ people ” that had sailed for Salonika before I left 
London. 

Why had I ever opened my mouth about that? 

For now Dick Holiday, who was in love with Muriel, 
knew the whole of my silly, humiliating little tragedy. 

I felt that it was written on my face anyhow. 

I turned away, wishing that the tiled kitchen floor 
would swallow me up. 

As I turned Elizabeth was at my elbow. 

“ Let’s go home,” she muttered forlornly. 

We slipped out of the party without any leave-taking. 
Silently we made our way back to camp. And I am 
sure that to hear us laughing with Miss Easton and 
Vic, to see us fox-trotting together to the rowdiest 
record on the Camp gramophone, you would never have 
guessed that the Man-hater and I were about the most 
miserable pair of girls in the Land Army that night ! 


CHAPTER XXVI 


COLONEL, FIELDING DISCUSSES “ LOVE AND THE LIKE ” 

“’Tis Love breeds love in me, and cold disdain 
Kills that again.” — Doxne. 

W ITH the morning we had pulled ourselves to- 
gether again. Not a word did Elizabeth 
address to me on the subject of our having 
met my old love in attendance on Muriel. Not a sylla- 
ble did I say to her about the object of her own mis- 
placed affections, that finished and unscrupulous flirt, 
that philanderer more accomplished than Harry — 
Colonel Fielding. The name of Captain Holiday was 
not mentioned. In fact, there might not have been 
“ such a thing as young men ” in our world that morn- 
ing. 

A wet morning it had turned out ! Hay-culling 
would be out of the question. This we knew even be- 
fore we scrambled into our brown Land Army mackin- 
toshes and splashed away down the road. 

Elizabeth congratulated herself on the nice dry in- 
door job that would be hers, for Mrs. Price was go- 
ing to let us take turns at helping her on baking-day, 
and this was the turn of my chum. 

As for me, I found that I should also be kept out 
of the wet. My morning’s work was in the big shearing- 
shed, turning the shearing-machine for Ivor, the shep- 
227 


228 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


herd. He held down the fat lambs on a wooden bench 
set on the great black floor-sheet of tarpaulin, and went 
slowly and methodically to work with a sort of twelve- 
pointed clipping-knife over the body of the lamb, while 
I turned the big red wheel with its belt and pipe at- 
tached to the knife. It was not hard work, but quite 
soothing — rather like knitting ! 

And I was at this occupation when I had a visitor, 
brought in by Mr. Price. It was none other than 
young Colonel Fielding, who asked diffidently whether 
he might take a turn and give a hand either to Ivor or 
Miss Matthews. 

Ivor, a blond, quiet man in a dark-blue linen coat, 
looked up and smiled benignantly upon this slim young 
officer. Ivor had no English, Mr. Price explained, but 
he understood pretty well everything else. Especially 
everything about sheep. 

“ Then — er — you’re lucky to have had him turned 
down by the doctor, and to be able to keep him on the 
farm,” said Colonel Fielding. 

“ Oh, he would make a very poor soldier,” was the 
Welsh farmer’s verdict. “ Very reserved man ; very re- 
served indeed ! ” 

Ivor smiled again as the lamb upon which he had been 
operating dropped the last of his heavy coat upon the 
sheet and, shaven, shorn, and freed at last, scrambled 
out into the adjoining shed. 

The shepherd seized another struggling and woolly 
one, downed him into his place, and took up the shear- 
ing-knife once more. 


“ LOVE AND THE LIKE ” 229 

“ Now,” he said in Welsh, with a little nod to me, and 
I continued to work the wheel. 

Mr. Price in his oilskin coat had stepped out again 
into the rain. Colonel Fielding did not go with him. 
He unfastened his brown, trench-worn mackintosh, 
threw it on one of the big wool-sacks, and took a pace 
nearer to me and my wheel. 

I wondered if he had expected to see Elizabeth in the 
shed. Taking absolutely no notice of him I worked 
on. 

“ Let me have a turn, won’t you?” came the meek 
voice of the intruder — for I felt, as I never had with 
Captain Holiday, that an intruder he was. 66 You take 
a rest, Miss Matthews.” 

“ Thank you, I am not in the least tired.” I said it 
coldly. I thoroughly disapproved of this young man 
who had been trifling with Elizabeth’s feelings. 

Elizabeth, bless her, was too good to be at the mercy 
of this young scamp with his D. S. 0. and his subtle 
way of flirting so that you could hardly nail it down and 
say that it was flirting at all. Elizabeth had said hard 
things of Harry, in the days of my infatuation for him. 
But she hadn’t thought any harder things of him than 
I thought now of this slender-waisted ruffian with the 
moustache that looked as if a pinch of light-gold paint 
had been rubbed on to his upper lip. 

Cruel hard lines that he should turn out to be the 
one and only exception to Elizabeth’s rule of hating 
men ! 

In his meekest of voices he said: 


230 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


“ Perhaps you are not tired. But why are you so 
— er — poisonously angry with me? ” 

Before I could reply he answered, still meekly, his 
own question. 

“You loathe me because you think I’ve been heart- 
lessly flirting with your little friend.” 

I stared! 

He smiled deprecatingly. 

“ Oh, yes ! ” he continued, “ women think it takes a 
woman to spot those things. But — er — I knew. 
Now I’ll tell you — er — something.” 

He glanced towards that “ reserved ” man, the shep- 
herd. 

“ No English, eh? ” he broke off. “ I wish no serv- 
ants knew any! By Jove, how it would simplify life 
for a lot of people ” 

“ But what did you want to tell me?” I said crossly. 

“ Just this,” replied Colonel Fielding, with his most 
deceptive, most shrinking bashfulness. “ I’m going to 
marry your little friend, Miss Weare.” 

“ To marry Miss Weare? ” 

You can imagine how I stared afresh at this. In 
fact, I stopped turning the wheel. 

Deftly taking the handle from me, Colonel Fielding 
began turning it in my place rhythmically, easily. I 
stood there beside him, watching him blankly. 

I remembered Elizabeth’s forlorn mood of last night. 
I w'ent back to her, as I’d seen her this morning, turn- 
ing to the kitchen, where she was to help Mrs. Price 


“ LOVE AND THE LIKE ” 


231 


bake. Her small face under its thick crop had been set 
with the determination to let work drive away trouble. 
For trouble, I knew, had been as heavy at her heart as 
it was at my own. Then was all that altered already? 

“ What ! ” I exclaimed. “ You’ve seen her this morn- 
ing? ” 

His eyes under their long lashes did not leave the 
turning-wheel. He only said gently: 

“ No, I haven’t seen her this morning.” 

“ But ” I exclaimed. I knew he could not have 

seen her last night after we got back to camp. 

“ You haven’t even asked her yet? ” I said. 

“ No,” he agreed. “ I haven’t asked her yet.” And 
he went on turning that big red wheel as if he were a 
Fate in khaki. After half a dozen turns he added, 
“ But I am going to marry her, for all that.” 

Rebukefully I said, “ You mean you’re going to 
marry her if she’ll have you ? ” 

“ She will have me,” he said gently, but firmly. He 
blushed a little, but the girlish blushes that this young 
man went in for never seemed to make the faintest dif- 
ference to his cheek — in another sense. “ She’ll have 
me. I know that.” 

“ How do you know that? ” I retorted, sitting there 
on that sack, and hardly knowing whether I were more 
glad on Elizabeth’s account, or more indignant or more 
puzzled by this young man of hers. 

He answered : “ I know, because I know the — er — 

the kind of man I am myself.” . • . Here he looked up, 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


232 

shyly, from that wheel, and said, “ Miss Matthews, you 
think I’m — er — the last word in fatuous conceit.” 

I was thinking so. How could I help it after what 
he had just said? 

“ Er — I’d hate you to think that. You are her pal. 
I — er — owe you an explanation. Please forgive me 
if I talk to you for a bit just about myself ” 

I put in “ That’s a thing all men do.” 

“ Yes. But — er — all men don’t ask you to forgive 
them first, do they?*’ he said very quickly. “Gen- 
erally they yarn on and on and on, imagining a woman 
must be jolly interested to hear it. They don’t realize 
that the woman (unless she happens to be wildly in 
love with them), the woman’s — er — mostly thinking 
of something miles away all the time ! ” 

I couldn’t help smiling. To hear a man himself say 
such a thing! It sounded more like something Eliza- 
beth herself might give out. 

He said, “You have forgiven me? Well, I’ll tell 
you why I know Miss Weare will have me. If she were 
not attracted enough for that, I should not be attracted. 
You see I am talking — er — quite frankly; no camou- 
flage at all. Unless a girl liked me, I shouldn’t begin 
to seek her. Not after the first look. I must be liked,” 
he said very simply and with that blush, but very 
definitely, “ I must feel that I am wanted.” 

He seemed to me extraordinary, from what I knew of 
men. I said, “ But, Colonel Fielding, men always pre- 
fer a girl who doesn’t seem to want to have anything 
lo say to them ! They say men want the chase ! ” 


“ LOVE AND THE LIKE ” 


233 


“ 1 can’t help a lot of the silly conventional things 
people say,” he declared blandly. “ Er — I suppose 
those things are true enough about people who are all 
alike, like a flock of sheep.” Here he nodded towards 
the lamb which had just sprung out of Ivor’s hands, and 
had made off to join his shorn brethren. “ But I say 
— er — what I feel myself.” 

I looked at him doubtfully, the graceful creature 
whom I personally could not admire. 

He said, “ It wouldn’t amuse me to try to make — 
er — love to anybody unless I felt that it would amuse 
them too, and — er — delight them ! ” 

I objected, “ But that’s a woman’s point of view.” 

“ Why only a woman’s?” asked the young soldier 
mildly, turning his wheel. “ 1 learnt it from my 
mother. The woman’s view! I find it useful to look 
at — er — Love and the like. ‘ Two things greater 
than all things are , the -first is Love and the next is 
War.' The average man has made good on War, these 
last Tour years. But — er — I don’t listen to him 
much on Love.” 

“ Why not ? ” 

“ Because I don’t think the average man makes a suc- 
cess of it,” declared this puzzling creature coolly. 
“ Give a kid of two a violin to play; what? I think 
he (the average man) could learn plenty from the 
average woman — on that one subject. It’s with her 
my sympathies are, Miss Matthews. ... Of course I 
talk too much. . . . And now you’ll call me effemi- 
nate.” 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


234 

His face wore a mask of harmless politeness with a 
gleam behind his lashes as I looked at him. Effeminate? 
With that striped ribbon on his breast, with his col- 
onelcy at twenty-six, with all the praise and devotion of 
his men? These things are not won by effeminates. 

He was a man all right, even if he did say and think 
things which we imagine are exclusively feminine. He 
was a puzzling exception. And even if he were the kind 
of man whom I could never have loved I was beginning 
to like him. 

Without replying to his remark about effeminacy, I 
smiled and got up. 

“ Let me take a turn,” I said. 

I took the handle of the wheel from him and began 
to work. He sat down on the wool-sack that I had left. 
And even as we changed places something else changed 
between us. 

He realized it, as I did. 

“We shall be friends now,” he said very quickly and 
gently. 

“ Yes,” I nodded. 

“ They say — your dear 6 They ’ ! — that there’s no 
such thing as Platonic friendship. Here’s the one ex- 
ception,” he told me. “ Where all the Love goes else- 
where. You know you think I’m utterly unattractive. 
But you want to listen to me. As a matter of fact, 
you’ll never talk to a fiance , Miss Matthews, as freely 
;as you’ll talk to me.” 

" Never,” I agreed. 


“ LOVE AND THE LIKE ” 


235 


44 Nor shall I ever jaw like this, to Elizabeth.” . . . 
He broke off and said affectionately, 44 You’re such a 
pal to her ! ” 

44 She is to me.” 

44 1 know,” he said. 44 1 knew it before I saw you twa 
girls. It spoke out of her letters to me from the flat. 
You know, when I got her letters, I — er — wanted to 
see her ! ” 

44 They were mostly about the kitchen sink,” I said, 
laughing. 

44 Yes, that’s what she told me when I told her she put 
herself into her letters,” said the man whom we had 
called 44 the old Colonel ” in those days. 44 Somehow I 
made up my mind that this girl I’d never seen would 
be different from — er — most girls. I came down 
here, you know, to look. And then — when I caught 
sight of her by that cart in the field — looking such a 
little picture ! — I could have caught her up then and 
there ! ” 

44 1 wonder you weren’t discouraged ; she was chilling 
enough that morning ! ” 

44 No,” he denied. 44 1 felt she didn’t mean that. 
That was just the first minute when she had realized I 
was that distasteful creature a man, and yet that she 
didn’t dislike the look of me.” 

44 Ah ! She’s told you she hates men.” 

44 Yes, we’ve had all that,” he admitted, 44 and I ex- 
plained to her that I ought to understand, because, as. 
a rule, I don’t like girls.” 


23 6 A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 

Here I lifted my head and looked severely at this hum- 
bug. 

44 You? Not like girls ! ” I exclaimed. 

44 Not usually,” he persisted, smiling at me. 44 I think 
they’re too little.” 

44 Little ? But you are in love with Elizabeth. And 
Elizabeth’s tiny ! ” 

46 Elizabeth,” he repeated, and I heard him give a lit- 
tle laugh of delight over the name of the beloved. 
44 Elizabeth has a heart as big as the earth ! I was — 
er — talking of hearts, natures, minds. So often girls 
make me feel their minds are rather narrow,” confessed 
this odd type of woman-hater. 

44 Petty, you know,” he went on. 44 Saying — er — 
things about other women — oh, brrrr 1 Spiteful to 
their own sex. Then being decent and jolly enough 
with — er — us. That puts me off; by Jove, nothing 
w r orse! I can say all this to you, Miss Matthews. 
You’re different; like her. But lots of girls make me 

feel they — they Well, not enough cold tub!” 

he wound up ingenuously, 44 and too much face-pow- 
der!” 

The last words brought a certain image into my 
mind; exquisitely-dressed, scented, powdered Muriel! 

Thinking of yesterday, I said to the young man, 
44 You’re very severe on girls, but I saw you when you 
were flirting outrageously with one — no, not with 
Elizabeth. With Miss Elvey.” 

44 To see if it annoyed Elizabeth!” he admitted, so 
frankly that I had to laugh over my work. 


“ LOVE AND THE LIKE ” 


237 


I said: 44 Now that was feminine enough! That 
was 4 little ’ ! Anybody would have imagined that you 
were very much attracted. In fact, I thought you 
were.” 

44 Attracted? To Miss Elvey?” he cried out as if 
I’d said something too wildly improbable. 44 1 ? To 
her? Of all the girls on this earth? 99 

44 Why not?” I asked, surprised. 44 Nearly every 
man is ! ” 

44 Yes, but I couldn’t possibly be — er — attracted 
to Muriel Elvey ! ” he declared, vigorously shaking that 
small golden head of his. 44 Oh, no. Not to her ! I 
know too much ! ” 

44 You hardly know her at all. You’ve only met 
twice.” 

44 1 know a great deal about her,” declared young 
Colonel Fielding, impressively. 44 Not about this girl 
personally, perhaps. But about her kind.” 

He got up off the sack with an air of 44 that finishes 
it.” 

Deeply interested, since this was Dick Holiday’s pal 
speaking of Dick Holiday’s lady-love, I asked : 44 What 
do you mean by 4 her kind ’ ? ” 

44 1’\l tell you some day,” the young man promised me, 
getting into his Burberry again. 44 1 could tell you — 
er — yards ! And I will. Only I am afraid there 
isn’t time just now. I promised to meet old Dick at 
the bridge at eleven, by Jove. I must tear myself away. 
Good-bye. I say, I am glad we had this — er — little 
talk.” 


238 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


“Little talk” was good! His tongue had been 
going at least as fast as the shearing-wheel, or as the 
clipping-knife in Ivor’s hand. 

As he nodded to the shepherd and saluted me, I said, 
in a tone more cheerily friendly than I’d ever thought 
I should use to him, “Wait, wait; do stop a minute! 
This is all very well. Colonel Fielding, but when are 
you going to have that other little talk? ” 

“Which other?” he asked, standing, a graceful 
black silhouette, in the opening of the shearing-shed. 

“ Oh, you know ! What a young Pretender you are, 
always ! ” I cried, half laughing. “ I mean when are 
you going to speak about this, to her? ” 

He looked down, tilting his head sideways in a char- 
acteristic pose he had, lashes down, a gleam of small 
white teeth showing between the parted lips under the 
Avenue-gold smudge that he called a moustache. Oh, 
he was much too like a coloured advertisement for Bur- 
berry’s ! Still, it was Elizabeth’s choice. I was thank- 
ful that she was going to be happy with it. Only, 
when ? 

He said, laughing, “ What a staunch little friend 
you are to her ! You even go as far as to — er — ask 
people their 6 intentions ’ about her. . . . Miss Mat- 
thews, you’ll be the first person we shall tell ! ” 

Now what did he mean? 

In spite of his caring, genuinely, was he going to 
keep his love guessing a little longer? 

“ Do you think,” he said teasingly to me, “ that I 
ought to go off and bother her with this — er — on 


“ LOVE AND THE LIKE ” 


the nail? In the middle of whatever job she’s on? I 
don’t knew where she is ? ” 

He was answered — as he deserved. 

Not by me ! 

It was that “ reserved man,” Ivor the shepherd, re- 
puted to speak only his own language, who suddenly 
took us both aback. 

Lifting his head from his shearing, the Welshman 
put in, in his pleasant up-and-down accent, “ You look- 
ing for that other lady, sir? Miss Weare? I do 
think it is in the kitchen ! ” 

Here was a bit of a shock. 

The young Colonel and I had been chatting so freely, 
so confidentially! Imagining ourselves quite uncom- 
prehended, we had literally forgotten the presence of 
the silent, blue-j acketed Welsh shepherd, who knelt there 
busily shearing, while one of us turned the wheel and 
both of us talked. . . . How we had talked, to be sure ! 

And Ivor had not only heard; he had followed the 
conversation ! 

This was what he sprung upon us now ! Consterna- 
tion ! The blankest of awkward pauses ! 

Then Colonel Fielding, biting that golden morsel of a 
moustache, cleared his throat, turned to the shepherd, 
and said coldly and with as much dignity as could be 
lent to an obviously foolish remark, “ I thought you 
didn’t know any English ? ” 

Ivor blinked mildly back at the officer and answered : 
“ ’Deed, I not know only very little, sir.” 

“ I expect you all know a great deal more than you — 


240 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


er — give ou ^ you Welsh l ” declared Colonel Fielding, 
half-exasperated, half-amused. “ That’s how you get 
on in the world, isn’t it? ” 

66 Sir ? ” said Ivor, with a pleasant, puzzled smile. 
Impossible to tell whether he understood or not ! We 
should never know, either, how much of the talk we’d had 
had been eagerly taken in by him! All of it? We 
couldn’t exactly ask him ! Colonel Fielding glanced at 
me with a half-humorous little shrug. The same 
thought struck us both at the same minute. 

One thing was pretty certain. Very shortly Ivor 
would retail to Mrs. Ivor in fluent Welsh everything that 
he had understood of our English. In that gossipy lit- 
tle nest which was Careg, gaping for any crumb of 
news, it would very soon be all over the place that 
Colonel Fielding was to marry “ that little young lady 
that’s working for Mr. Price”! Yes; by midday it 
would be proclaimed. It would run like wildfire up to 
the Hospital and down to the Land Girls’ Camp. 
Everybody would know! Before Elizabeth herself 
knew ! *■ 

I could not help laughing at the dismayed face of 
young Colonel Fielding as he stood there, frowning, the 
wind taken out of his sails. It did serve him right! 
Mischievous as he was, and full of guile and wile and 
teasing, sheltering himself behind that pretence of shy- 
ness, he found his match in this Welshman who put up 
that bluff of ignorance! The game was to Ivor the 
shepherd, who did understand English after all. . . . ♦ 
But Colonel Fielding trumped that. He turned to me 


“ LOVE AND THE LIKE ” 


241 


and remarked : “ I am going to find her now, at once.” 

And he said it in rapid French! 

With which he left me to my soothing mechanical 
work in the shearing-shed. 

I watched his figure (waisted as if he wore corsets 
always, though to do him justice he never did except 
for his masquerades) disappear across the farmyard to 
the red-brick house. 


CHAPTER XXVII 


A KITCHEN COURTSHIP 

F OR the rest of the morning, turning steadily 
away at that wheel, I found myself wondering 
rather wistfully how things were going in there. 
In spirit I saw the whole setting for this love-scene. 
Mrs. Price’s back-kitchen with the big table, where she 
“ put up ” the dough for baking, set under the latticed 
window. The huge, hive-shaped “ batch-oven ” where 
I myself had helped with the baking last week. That 
oven had to be heated, early, by filling it with a stack 
of brushwood (some quite big boughs), setting, the 
stack on fire, and leaving it so until the wood was 
powdery-ash, and the bricks of the domed oven-roof 
were white-hot. Then in went the loaves which Mrs. 
Price’s tiny expert hands had shown us how to knead 
and to put up! 

They — Mrs. Price and Elizabeth — had reached this 
stage of the morning’s work by the time Colonel Field- 
ing made his appearance in search of the girl he’d de- 
cided to marry. 

What happened I heard something of later. (Not 
all.) Partly from Elizabeth, partly from him. 

An odd courtship; so entirely War-time and mod- 
ern! Yet going back hundreds of years; for what 
could be more old-fashioned than for the young man to 
seek his love among the warmth and the fragrance and 
242 


A KITCHEN COURTSHIP 


243 

the homely domesticity of the kitchen on baking-day 1 
There was little Mrs. Price in her crisp grey over- 
all with an old ivory brooch at her throat, busy and 
brisk and looking with every inch of herself “ a Lady ” 
in every sense, including that of the original Saxon 
“ Loaf-ward.” There was my chum Elizabeth helping 
her. With her hat off and her short thick hair rumpled 
about her small flushed face I expect she looked like a 
rather defiantly conscientious cherub ! 

To them, enter Colonel Fielding (with his blush!) 
telling Mrs. Price (with his usual shy charm of man- 
ner!) that he thought he’d like to come and help her, 
since he understood she’d got a busy day on. 

Mrs. Price, demurely : “ It will be a wonder if the 

farm doesn’t prosper this year, considering the amount 
of help we are getting from the Army ! It’s very good 
of you, I’m sure. The bread is all into the tins now, 
Elizabeth ? That’s right ; perhaps the Colonel will help 
you put them into the oven with this.” 

She gave him the immensely long-handled oven-shovel. 
On this Elizabeth set loaf after loaf in the tins, and he 
shoved one after another into the farther part of the 
hot oven. 

Then Mrs. Price turned to get water from the pump 
which is set just over the spring in the scullery, and 
then she bustled away on one of the thousand odd jobs 
that await the farmer’s women-folk at every turn. Or 
did she do it on purpose to leave those two together, 
working in the cosy, fragrant place? 

For some minutes they were silent as a couple of 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


working ants. Not a sound but the scraping of that 
shovel against the oven-floor! 

Then he began, very gently, “ D’you know who I 
feel sorry for? ” 

“ No,” from Elizabeth, setting her last tin loaf on 
the shovel. “ Who? ” 

“ Er . . . People who have to get engaged in town,” 
was his unexpected reply. “ Such a beastly rush. All 
mixed up with — er — taxis, and catching trains and 
crowds of people in restaurants all watching you ! 
Having to go to the theatre. . . . And then the lights 
going up, or the curtain. And people all hissing 
‘ Ssh ! ’ when you want to talk to the girl. Everybody 
jostling you. Not a bit of peace, you know. No 
room ! No — er — time to say anything or feel any- 
thing. Don’t you know ? ” 

I can picture the Man-hater suppressing her happy 
little fluster at this ; taking up the fruit tarts that had 
to go in in front of the oven, after the loaves. 

Colonel Fielding’s shy but deliberate voice went on: 
“ I think one’s — er — courtship ought to come in 
pleasant places. Where there’s quiet. And nice things 
about. And jolly things to do. Making hay. Or 
. . . bread. Don’t you think so ? ” 

Of course she thought so. The fields, the farm; any 
girl might envy Elizabeth the scenes that set first love 
for her, without hurry, without artificiality or fatigue! 
But I expect Elizabeth only flushed deeper and deeper 
pink, half with emotion, half with the heat of that oven. 
Little bright beads of moisture had gathered about her 


A KITCHEN COURTSHIP 


245 


forehead and neck; annoyed, she brushed them away 
with the sleeve of her overall, hoping that he did not see. 

As if anything she did would escape him now ! 

He moved from the oven and said thoughtfully : 44 I 

wish I could remember that quotation properly.” 

44 A quotation ? ” 

“ Yes, something I read about the sweetest sight in 
the world being that of a woman baking bread, and 
how, even if it were in the — er — sweat of her brow, 
what man was there * who would not rather hiss those 
drops away , than the powder from the cheek of a 
Duchess 9 f ” 

Having arrived at this stage of the story as told me 
by Elizabeth herself, I said to her : 44 And immediately 

after this, I suppose, the young man proposed to you? ” 

Elizabeth then told me : 44 He didn’t propose at all.” 

44 What? ” I cried. 

44 He didn’t propose,” repeated the Man-hater obsti- 
nately. 44 I did.” 

44 You?” 

44 I had to,” explained my little chum, glowing. 44 He 
made me.” 

44 What can you mean, 4 made 5 you? ” 

Elizabeth explained how 44 that quotation ” had made 
her so embarrassed (being quite unused to these re- 
marks from men) that she hadn’t known what to say 
and had practically snapped the young man’s head off. 

She told him sharply : 44 The bottled currants have 

got to go into the oven when the bread comes out. 
You might help to fetch them and their tin trays out 


246 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


of the scullery, instead of just standing there talking.” 

At that Colonel Fielding seemed positively to wither 
away where he stood. He looked suddenly miserable 
(according to Elizabeth). He said in the most un- 
happy voice : “ Have I — er — put my foot into it 

again? I suppose I must have, somehow. You’re 
angry with me, Miss Weare. I’ll go.” 

Elizabeth begged him not to go (I don’t suppose the 
creature had made a movement to the door), and said 
she wasn’t in the least angry, why should she be? 

The young Colonel then adopted a truly pathetic 
tone (I could hear it!) about his being “ very unfortu- 
nate with women, who always had a down on him. Yes ! 
They thought he was like a barber’s block, and hated 
him. All of ’em ! ” 

I could imagine his sidewards tilt of the head as he 
told the tale to Elizabeth, the boyishly-sincere. 

She, blurting out “ I don’t hate you ! ” hurried into 
the scullery for a couple of those tall glass jars of fruit 
for bottling. He followed her, carrying more fruit 
and murmuring that no girl could be got to care for 
him ; not really care ! 

Elizabeth said he looked more than ever like that 
picture “The Falconer” on her chocolate-box lid. I 
can imagine her adoring glance up at him ! 

This was in the kitchen, again in front of the oven. 
He had taken hold with both hands of the tray that 
she still held. 

“ I shouldn’t believe it,” the young villain told her, 
gazing into her flushed face. “ Not unless I heard it 


A KITCHEN COURTSHIP £47 

out of a girl’s own mouth! Not unless she cared 
enough to say so first ! ” 

Here Elizabeth broke off the story with a defiant “ So 
you see ! ” 

“ What did you say? 99 I urged. 

Neither of them would ever tell me. However ! Be- 
fore kind Mrs. Price returned (to see they did not 
repeat that old story of Alfred and the Cakes !) Eliza- 
beth had said whatever it was. 

In this proposal-scene she, the girl, had been forced 
to take the initiative. 

That went against all my instincts ; I couldn’t have 
done that. How human beings vary ! For she, strange 
little thing, simply loved being made to “ make the run- 
ning.” This I didn’t understand. 

“ He understood. He’s not like that great hulking 
brute you prophesied for me, the one who would trample 
on me with policemen’s seventeens ! You thought I 
would be 6 tamed ’ by somebody bullying me. That’s 
not what happens to a girl like me; that’s all wrong 
psychology,” babbled my chum exultantly, while I real- 
ized that the last phrase at least must have come from 
him. “ It’s only the frilly, helpless, overfeminized 
weepers that admire these huge, bullying navvies with 
ugly faces and muscles like vegetable marrows! I’d 
have been safe from them for ever! But he’s so won- 
derful ! He’s not a usual young man ” 

“ And you’re not a usual girl,” I told her affection- 
ately. “ My dears ! There is only one thing to be 
said: you certainly have found each other! 99 


CHAPTER XXVIII 


THE ONLOOKER 
“ Helas, raon ami I 

C’est triste d’econter le chanson sans le chanter aussi.” 

— Breton Ballard. 

A S for me, I was delighted. Let one of us be 
happy, I thought ; let Elizabeth, since I was 
evidently fated to be lonely! 

Yes ! Any love-story for me, Joan Matthews, seemed 
to be something quite past praying for. 

Twice, now, I had fallen in love. Twice I had drawn 
a blank! 

The first time I’d set my affections upon a philanderer 
(Harry Markham) who had given me every reason 
to think they were returned, but who probably hadn’t 
“ meant ” anything, even before he deserted to Muriel. 

The second time I had lost my heart to a man worth 
a hundred Harry s. This man (Dick Holiday) had 
never attempted to admire me. He was just helpful 
and jolly and friendly, but he’d never pretended to 
think of me in that other way. Yet I couldn’t stop 
caring for him with all the best that was in me. And 
now he was Muriel’s too ; I only waited to hear when 
their engagement would be announced. 

“ Really I ought to be phenomenally lucky at cards, 
seeing the sort of luck I’ve had in Love ! ” I laughed at 
myself. 


248 


THE ONLOOKER 


249 

For I could still laugh ; and here I must put forward 
something in my own defence ! I was taking the second 
love-fiasco very differently from my first . 

In London, over Harry’s desertion, I had let go all 
ropes, and had fretted and wept myself into a nervous 
wreck. 

Here on the Land, I never thought of behaving like 
that. I set my teeth to “ stick ” unhappy Love, which 
is a girl’s equivalent for a soldier’s “ sticking ” his most 
painful wound. I found I could still enjoy myself 
among the other girls, I could still be sympathetic over 
my chum’s engagement. I could throw myself body 
and soul into the work on the farm, where the hay- 
harvest was now in full swing. 

That work saved me, my self-respect, my spirits, and 
my looks from the ruin that threatens the very being 
of the girl who is crossed in love. How she endures 
that is so largely a matter of health after all. My 
health was now magnificent. Every day I grew 
fitter, more vigorous, rosier (though my nickname of 
“ Celery-face ” would persist to the end of my life here !) 
and more full of zest for anything that happened along. 
For on the Land one soon learns not only to take the 
rough with the smooth, but also to take plenty of inter- 
est in both. 

Now, after a couple of weeks of strenuous toil, there 
came a* promise of “ smooth ” ; a little treat. 

A note arrived for me at the Land Girls’ Camp which 
said: 


250 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


“ Dear Celery-face — 

“ These nice people that I work for suggest that I 
should ask a couple of ‘ my young friends * over to tea 
next Sunday. Will you and Mop he the young friends ? 
They know Captain Holiday and are asking him , so 
I expect he will bring Mop's 6 lovely Spaniard ’ with 
him. Do come. 

“ Yours , Sybil. 

“ P. S. — These people think the uniform so ‘ pic- 
turesque/ so come in it, even if Mop does want to wear 
garden-party clothes for the fiance ! ” 

By the way, I have not yet dwelt on the enormous 
excitement that blazed all over our Camp at the news 
that “ little Mop, the Man-hater ! ” had actually got en- 
gaged to be married to “ Colonel Fielding who was that 
Spanish lady at the Concert ! ” 

That sensation could have been beaten by nothing, 
unless perhaps news had come that same day of the 
sudden and complete surrender of the whole German 
Army. 

Anybody who has lived the communal life among girls 
(as most girls have in these days of Women’s Service!) 
can imagine the whirlwind of exclamations, congratu- 
lations, questions, laughter that almost carried the 
newly-engaged messmate off her sturdily-booted little 
feet. Only, no imagination can do justice to the golden 
cameraderie with which that Timber-gang and those 
other Land-workers at our Camp took Elizabeth to 
their hearts. (I hoped that her fiance would realize 


THE ONLOOKER 


251 

it; for after that he could never again say that girls 
were usually 46 little ” and “spiteful”!) They had 
always liked my plucky, downright little chum. Now, 
they couldn’t do enough for her ! 

Peggy, w T ho had started an elaborately crocheted 
camisole-top for her own bottom-drawer, dedicated it 
to Elizabeth. Peggy’s Sergeant Syd brought an of- 
fering of a table-centre, designed and worked by him- 
self in the gaudiest silks with the crest of Colonel Field- 
ing’s regiment, as well as with a Land Army hat, a rake 
and a rifle crossed, the motto “ England must be fed ! ” 
and other emblems. This was her very first wedding- 
present, an object that, whatever shape it takes, never 
fails to stir the heart of any engaged girl ! But Eliza- 
beth, who had flashes of defensiveness and of seeming 
to make (outwardly) little of Love and Marriage, 
declared that the wedding was not going to be for 
ages. 

“ The Colonel, he’ll watch that,” had been Vic’s la- 
conic comment. 

“ The earliest that it can be,” Elizabeth had then 
announced, " is when my year is up.” 

“ Good idea,” Miss Easton, the forewoman, had pro- 
nounced drily. “ But you might remember that the 
Secretary is able to let you have a brand-new overall 
in advance before the six months yours has got to go, 
if you want it.” 

“ I don’t want a new overall,” from my chum, glancing 
down at her already well-worn garment. “ What for, 
Miss Easton? ” 


252 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


“ Lots of the girls like to get married in uniform, my 
dear.” 

“ I shan’t be getting married for eighteen months at 
least,” had been Elizabeth’s ultimatum. 

“ That’s putting a lot of extra work on me and 
Vic ! ” the young forewoman had sighed whimsically. 

Eor every evening now Miss Easton had a Thermos 
filled and a packet of bread-and-butter or rock-cakes 
ready for 66 Mop ” to take after work, so that she 
could have her tea out with her fiance in the field, where 
they met at a stile. (Those were the halcyon hours 
for them both!) 

As for Vic, the big, good-natured Cockney had taken 
in hand the appearance of Elizabeth. Vic now 
“ shined ” her Sunday brogues, Vic saw that she always 
had a pair of the neatest brown stockings to wear with 
them, Vic ironed her smock, Vic 44 saw to ” her armlet 
and badges ; Vic, every evening, gave ten minutes to 
brushing “ young Mop’s ” short, thick crop until it 
shone and floated out like raw brown silk round her 
face. 

64 Must have you looking a credit to US,” the self- 
constituted female batman said to her. “ Remember, 
all eyes — such as there are of ’em here — are upon 
you! The girl that’s going to marry the D. S. O. 
You jolly well reflect back on the Camp, my girl, and 
then some more D. S. O.’s will come round looking to 
see if there’s any more at home like you (perhaps). 
You let me put your belt straight. Now, got a clean 
handkie? Like a drop o’ Lil’s scent on it? No? He 


THE ONLOOKER 


253 


don’t care for scent? All right. Now I think you’re 
ready ” — all this was just before Elizabeth and I 
started off for that somewhat eventful tea at the house 
of Sybil’s employers. 

“ Now, young Celery-face,” Vic went on, u how do 
you look? Yes, you’ll do nicely. Of course I may be a 
bit more particular about the way I turn you out as 
soon as you get engaged. You’ll be the next, I 
bet ” 

“ I shouldn’t bet much,” I advised her, smiling above 
the little stab at my heart as I disengaged myself from 
Vic’s kindly hands — and clothes-brush. “ You’ll only 
be disappointed. I shall not oblige you by getting en- 
gaged from the farm, Vic ! ” 

“ Oh ! Why ever not, if I may inquire ? ” 

“ Largely because nobody is likely to ask me I ” I 
answered as we left the hut. 

“ Ah, go on ! ” Vic called after me as she stood in the 
doorway, laughing and waving the clothes-brush. 
“ F’rall you know, somebody’s going to ask you at this 
Do this very afternoon ! ” 

Now if Vic had heard the story of that Sunday after- 
noon-party that was coming, I expect her verdict would 
have been: “There! What did I tell you? Many 
a true word is spoken in jest ! ” 

That afternoon witnessed my first offer of marriage 
— No, I had forgotten. It was not my first. My first 
had been by letter, that improbable-sounding sort of 
letter that I’d received in the Spring from the young 
man called Richard Wynn, and that I had tossed away 


254 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


by mistake into a London County Council waste-paper 
bin before I’d even answered it. That was the first ! 

The second was by word of mouth, and it took place 
under the sun of early July, in one of the prettiest 
country gardens that ever 

But I’ll begin with the house where we were invited 
by these people for whom our colleague Sybil was now 
working. 

We walked for a good two miles down a lane branch- 
ing off, under trees, from the road to our farm ; we came 
at last to a white gate and then up a drive bordered 
with tall flowers that flourished as they chose in the 
long grass. The house — which had one of those in- 
terminable Welsh names beginning with “ Dol ” — was 
long and white, striped green by creepers, and with a 
wide porch garlanded^vith heavy-headed roses. 

Just to the right of the porch a long window-box 
filled with black pansies stood in front of an open upper 
window. A girl’s rosy face and wavy hair peeped out ; 
it was the daughter of the house who called to us in a 
voice which, though pleasant, would have made her for- 
tune as a pilot on the Mersey, “ A-hoy ! How d’you 
do? . . . Syb — il! Here are your friends! . . . 
Come in, will you? Don’t stop to ring; it doesn’t.” 

Elizabeth and I went straight into the cool, shady 
hall, and into the midst of one of the most welcoming 
and hospitable, the least conventional homes that I have 
ever entered. 

We were greated by Sybil’s employers, the master 
and mistress of the house. He, an old soldier, wearing 


THE ONLOOKER 


255 


the hearthrug-like tweeds and the mossy stockings of 
a country squire of that neighbourhood; she a plump 
and still pretty woman in spotted black and white mus- 
lin, with wavy hair like her daughter’s grown grey, and 
with an egg-basket which she never put down, over her 
arm. He and she seldom stopped talking, always talked 
at once ; generally in the form of questions. 

Thus — 

“ My dears, won’t you come and sit down? Did you 
walk all the way from Careg? Aren’t you tired?” 

“ Does Miss Sybil know these young ladies have come, 
Mother? Can’t we have some tea for them at once? ” 
“ One of you is engaged to that friend of our friend, 
Captain Holiday’s ; is it you? No? You? Isn’t that 

very nice? Will it be a long engage ” 

“ Where’s Miss Sybil? ” (Enter from the back our 
friend Sybil, smiling, but unable to get a word in.) 

“ Now, where’s Vera, where’s that girl Violet ” 

Violet (the daughter of the house) came running down 
to add her voice to this family anthem. 

“Hullo! Did you find your way easily? Daddy, 
where are the dogs? . . . Dogs!” (loudly). 

“ Sybil, you’re not going to try to introduce every- 
body, are you? Why are we all standing here? Why 
aren’t we taking these people into the drawing-room ? ” 
We were borne along into the big drawing-room to 
the right of the hall. It was full of flowers and lovely 
old furniture and silver-framed photographs and an 
immense round tea-table and a cluster of other guests. 
Here the sun rose again upon Elizabeth’s world. 


256 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


Her eyes had fallen at once upon her fiance , Colonel 
Fielding. He was sitting there, near his friend, Cap- 
tain Holiday. 

What a merry tea-fight that was in the hospitable 
and happy-go-lucky Welsh country-house ! 

To sit in a dainty drawing-room amidst a cluster of 
strangers wearing “ real ” summer frocks. To see a 
winking bright silver spirit-kettle and a snowy cobweb 
cloth. To drink tea from fragile cups and to spread, 
with crystal-handled knives, honey upon wafer bread- 
and-butter ! 

These little luxuries we never noticed in our pre- 

War days. But now Remember ! It was the first 

time for weeks that we Land-girls had tasted such re- 
finement ! 

“ What a treat this all is,” I remarked to Captain 
Holiday as he handed hot cakes in a lordly dish. 

He replied: “Ah! Now perhaps you’ll have an 
idea how fellows feel when they get out of the mud and 
plum-and-apple-with-chloride-of-lime up the Line, and 
back to Civilization for a few days’ leave.” 

“When I got my Paris leave last year,” put in the 
demure voice of Colonel Fielding, who had dropped into 
a low chair close to his fiancee , “ do you know what 
was the first thing I did? ” 

“ D’you want us to guess, my boy?” boomed the 
genial master of the house, who was also a Colonel. 

The younger man smiled at him. “ I’ll tell 3 r ou, sir. 
I ordered a great sheaf of La France roses and lilac to 
be sent up, with a huge glass jar to put ’em in, to my 


THE ONLOOKER 


257 


room at the Hotel. And there I lay and looked at ’em, 
till dejeuner , because I hadn’t seen a flower for 
months ! ” 

The other guests then took up that never-failing 
topic of leave, and how some people always get it 
and some never ; why ? A question unanswerable. I 
thought of Captain Harry Markham, nicknamed in his 
regiment “ The Special Leave King.” But the thought 
of my faithless admirer could not depress me now. 
For the moment I was perfectly content, sitting at that 
gay tea-table between my motherly hostess and Dick 
Holiday. 

He chaffed me about “ a woman’s ineradicable love 
of luxury, on the Land or off ! ” and I laughed, glad 
that I could sometimes see him thus for half an hour, 
without any Muriel to spoil it all. 

On the other side, my hostess’s questioning talk 
flowed on. 

“You like the Farm-work, my dear?” to me. 
“Your people don’t mind you taking it up? The 
Prices look after you? Perfect dears, aren’t they? 
Has Mrs. Price had the Isle of Wight disease? Her 
bees, I mean? No? How’s that, I wonder, when 
everybody else’s bees in the county — oh, she doesn’t 
keep bees? . . . When are your friend and Colonel 
Fielding to be married ? ” 

“ Not for a long time ! ” burst from Elizabeth, but 
our kind hostess went on, unheeding. 

“ Couldn’t we arrange to have the wedding from this 
house? I adore weddings, don’t you? . . . Vera!” to 


258 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


a laughing blonde in light blue who was a niece of the 
house, “ you haven’t eaten all the light-cakes ? Aren’t 
there any more light-cakes for when Captain Holiday’s 
cousin comes in? Dick! You did say your cousin, 
Miss Elvey, was coming later? ” 

“ Yes ! ” from my neighbour. “ She’s driving up 
presently.” 

My heart sank. 

Muriel Elvey was coming after all? 

Even as I thought it there was a crunching of light 
wheels on the gravel outside. A dog-cart drove up 
holding khaki and the flutter of a dress. 

A moment later Muriel entered. Just a bright- 
headed bouquet of muslin, rose-sprigged with mauve! 
Even as she uttered smiling greetings she made every 
other girl there look comparatively plain at once. 

As for me, I instantly became a hopeless clodhopper 
sitting there in rough breeches and smock, with my 
thick brogues planted on the soft carpet. Awkward 
and out of place, all enjoyment was over for me as 
soon as Dick Holiday’s fashionable contrast of a girl 
floated into the drawing-room. 

The man who had driven her up came in a few 
moments afterwards. 

To my surprise, it was Harry again ! “ More leave, 

Markham? ” I heard Colonel Fielding laugh; and then 
Harry, “ No, I just got down for the week-end.” 

So he had come all that way, just to be near Muriel. 
Oh, what it must be to have her power over men ! As 
far as I could see, there was only one man in that 


THE ONLOOKER 


259 


party who wasn’t at her little feet as she sat coquetting 
now with the master of the house. Elizabeth’s fiance 
had said, “ 1 know too much about her ! I know her 
kind ! ” 

What did the young Colonel mean? 

However ! He didn’t count ; being engaged, ‘ and, 
as Elizabeth herself said, “ not a ‘ usual ’ young man.” 

One thing I noticed about one of the more “ usual ” 
young men there. Harry Markham was not himself 
that afternoon. Something was weighing on him. 

I knew it! I knew his face and ways so well. 
Hadn’t I studied them, as only a girl in love has pa- 
tience to study, for a whole year? 

Nobody else out of that roomful of people would 
detect any cloud. Harry was a young man who could 
“ make himself at home ” anywhere. He did so now. 
I saw everybody — except perhaps Dick Holiday, 
who suddenly turned silent — summing up Captain 
Markham as a charming fellow. 

He talked pleasantly; to our host of salmon-fishing 
and of soldiering in the East; to our hostess of bees 
and poultry. Elizabeth he congratulated prettily, tell- 
ing her that he (Harry) had spotted Fielding as “a 
man determined to win ” the first time he met him. 
Even Elizabeth had been slightly mollified by this to- 
wards the man she’d once pronounced “ a rotter ! ” 
He laughed and made himself agreeable. And only I 
realized that while he did so his mind was not in any 
of it. 

Why? 


260 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


I thought I guessed. 

As they came along in the dog-cart he had been 
trying to make love to the only girl he couldn’t win 
over at once. 

Muriel had been unkind to him. What a revenge 
for me — if I wanted a revenge, which I didn’t. 

So far I guessed. But not what was coming! 


CHAPTER XXIX 


LOVE AFTER THE INTERVAL 

“Let this be said between us here. 

One love grows green as one grows grey, 
Tomorrow has no more to say 

To yesterday.” 

— Swinburne. 


A T last the long leisurely tea of Sunday after- 
noon in a country-house came to an end. 
People strayed out into the grounds, a little 
green and golden world of peace it was ! 

I heard Colonel Fielding’s velvet voice murmuring 
u Carissima ” 

This was his pet name for his sweetheart. She 
called him “ Falconer.” The pair of them wandered 
off together and disappeared with the swift and utter 
completeness possible only to lovers — or to small 
boys who are called to have their faces washed. 

The others drifted towards the water-garden, or 
to inspect the vegetables which were Sybil’s domain; 
Sybil, the garden-girl, was entirely one of the family 
here. 

Muriel (of course) called to Dick Holiday to come 
and translate the motto on the sun-dial for her. 

And then, suddenly, I found a figure in khaki with 
soft dark eyes under a scarlet-banded cap, edging pur- 
261 


262 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


posefully towards me in a manner that recalled a year 
now dead. 

How often I had longed in vain for this to happen! 

What fruitless tears I’d shed! And now Oh, 

why do people pine, after long years to see their first 
loves again? It is, nearly always, a mistake to meet 
them any more. ... It is a wash-out ! 

Shakespere’s most characteristic lover puts it all in 
a nutshell. 

“ Enough, no more ! 

’Tis not as sweet now as it was before.” 

But Harry Markham, whom I had once thought such 
a man of the world, had less savoir vivre than the Count 
Orsino. 

“ Joan,” he murmured ingratiatingly as he came up, 
“ I haven’t been allowed a single word with you ” 

Presently I found myself having the “ word ” alone 
with him at the bottom of the garden, away from the 
others in a sheltered nook screened by a hedge of 
sweetpeas. 

Harry always was an adept at these arrangements. 
Strange, to think that he should be making them again 
for me after all these months ! 

He began in a voice distinctly sentimental, 66 It’s a 
long time, isn’t it, since . . . last summer? Look 
here, there’s a seat. We’ll sit down.” 

“ Not for long,” said I, matter-of-fact. “ I have to 
get back soon, to Camp.” 

“ Camp,” returned Harry, as he sat down beside 
me on the garden-bench. “ Sounds odd to hear all 


LOVE — AFTER THE INTERVAL 203 

you girls talking about * Camp ’ like a lot of Tom- 
mies.” 

“ We’re rather proud of being like them.” 

“ Of course. But, I say, who are you with all 
day? What do you have to do? ” 

I answered his questions as concisely as I could. I, 
who used to prize every moment with him ! felt I wanted 
to join the others! 

He nodded ; asked “ Don’t you mind having to 
rough it? ” 

“ I don’t call it 6 roughing it ’ very badly, thank 
you. I enjoy it.” 

“ Sporting of you,” declared Harry, “ but not a 
bit the sort of thing you used to be keen on, Joan. 
You’ve altered.” 

“ Yes,” I agreed quietly. “ 1 think I have altered 
a good deal.” 

He sent one of those well-known glances of his from 
under the peak of his cap as he sat. “ I needn’t tell 
you how the life suits you, as far as looks go. I’ve 
never seen you with such a colour, and your hair’s all 
full of those gold gleams I always thought so top- 
ping ” 

For the first time in my life that caressing voice 
left me cold. 

“ That kit is jolly becoming to you.” 

“Yes?” I said politely. “I thought you admired 
pretty frocks.” 

“ Those suited you, too. But in this you’re a young 
Ceres.” 


264 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


“ I’m afraid I’ve forgotten what those were.” 

“ She was the goddess of Harvest or something,” 
explained Harry, discomfited. “ Somebody outdoor 
and glowing and rosy, with a lovely figure, if I may 
say so ” 

“ Why not? ” I smiled at him in a friendly way. 

He amused me, now. I was rather tickled to see 
him not quite knowing how to talk to me after this 
silence of months in which he’d left me without a 
good-bye. 

I saw him like a precocious schoolboy who has been 
rude to somebody and who wants to apologize without 
losing his dignity. 

And, as I say, I used to see him as the most wonder- 
ful, the cleverest mixture of a man of the world and a 
demigod ! 

To think how we can change. . . . But he imagined 
I was still the adoring conquest of those old days in 
town. 

He thought I was putting up a gallant little bit 
of feminine bluff. He imagined that my heart was still 
beating as wildly as ever it did at the sound of his 
voice, the glance of his eyes that courted and caressed. 

Gone was their magic for me! Harry Markham 
didn’t realize that. 

That want of perception helped him towards one 
of the biggest mistakes he was ever to make! 

I, who thought I could read every sign of his hand- 
some, rather self-conscious young face, I’d never fore- 
seen it. 


love — AFTER THE INTERVAL 265 


No, not even when he began by lowering his voice 
to its most persuasive pitch. 

“ Joan! You aren’t being very nice to me. You’re 
fed with me about something.” 

“ Not a bit,” I assured him. 

Reproachful glance from Captain Markham. 66 My 
dear little girl ” 

How long was it since I’d thrilled to hear myself 
called this? Today I found it the wrong expression; 
I was nearly as tall as he was, after all, I thought. 
Also I felt rather bored with the turn that the conver- 
sation was taking. 

No more flirtation for me, thanks. 

66 My dear little girl, d’you suppose I don’t know 
the difference between this and the jolly chummy 
times we used to have? ” he appealed to me. “ You’ve 
forgotten the day we went to Hampton Court.” 

“ I have not,” said I, looking away. “ I remem- 
ber it perfectly. We came back too late to go to the 
theatre, and we were so disappointed.” 

“ I don’t remember any disappointment,” he said 
softly. “ I only remember ... a perfect day.” 

Of course I too remembered that the day at Hamp- 
ton Court had been the first time Harry had kissed 
me. My face flamed with annoyance to think I had 
permitted this. I rose from the garden-bench. What 
busy centuries I’d lived through since that morning at 
breakfast with Elizabeth in our London flat, when the 
universe had been darkened for me by the news of 
Harry’s going! Now it had come to my turn to want 


266 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


to go. Uncanny in the light of What had been, but 
true ! The familiar figure in khaki and scarlet seemed 
to me that of a quiet, strange young man to whom I 
didn’t want to talk at all. 

I took a step down the grassy path. He followed 
me, speaking in the ingratiating manner that was sec- 
ond nature to him. I could not help hearing a note of 
insincerity in his voice now ; yes, and a note of odd im- 
patience. It was as if he’d set himself to play some 
part and were irritated with me because I did not play 
up to him. 

“Ah, Joan, wait! I brought you out here on pur- 
pose to say something to you. Not about Hampton 
Court ” 

“No; that’s all over,” I assured him, meaning more 
than just one picnic. 

“ But I want to talk about you. How long d’you 
mean to go on with this farm-business? ” 

“ I signed on for a year. Why? ” 

“What d’you suppose you’ll do after that year?” 

I pulled a mauve-and-purple sweetpea out of the 
hedge as we passed. “ Who knows? Perhaps stay on 
the Land for good.” 

“A girl like you?” 

“ Or I might transfer into the Women’s Forestry 
Corps later on. They’ll want people for replanting 
the timber where all the lovely woods have been cut 
down. The Forester here says girls are particularly 
good for nursery-work ; they’re quick and light-footed, 
and don’t trample down the young plants.” 


LOVE — AFTER THE INTERVAL 267 


Harry seemed to care little about that question, 
though he’d surprised me by his sudden interest in 
my own career. This after months of forgetting my 
existence ! 

“ It’s all very well for you to do this in War-time,” 
he told me. 66 The War, though, will be over before 
we’re old, I hope. You can’t go on tramping round 
filthy turnip-fields and feeding pigs and pigging it 
yourself in a wooden shanty with Heaven knows who ! ” 

“ I like it.” 

“ No,” he insisted, rallying. 66 Now your little 
friend, Miss Weare, has done the sensible thing. So 
will you. Of course you’ll get married too, Joan.” 

“I? No,” I said with unsmiling finality. “ I shall 
not get married.” 

At this my old love put back his head and laughed. 

Then it came. 

Standing there close to me on the path bordered on 
one side by the sweetpeas, on the other by the high 
garden wall with its fans of plum and apricot, he 
moved as if to pull himself together for a jump. He 
gave one very odd glance about him. That glance 
seemed made up of so many things: resolution, amuse- 
ment, pettishness, teasing, ruefulness, a certain kindli- 
ness, and triumph. 

Then his eyes came back smiling to mine as he ex- 
claimed, “ Ah, darling, rot ! I’ll tell you something. 
You are going to get married. I am going to marry 
you myself.” 

I suppose no man in this world had ever made that 


268 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


announcement to a girl feeling more utterly sure of 
\iis success than was Captain Harry Markham at that 
moment. I think no girl in this world can ever have 
had more difficulty than I had then in conveying to a 
suitor that his proposal was not to be accepted after 
all. 

How he clung to the conviction that I could not 
mean what I said, that I was teasing him, paying him 
out ! 

“Paying you out? Why should I? For what?” 

“ Because — well, perhaps because I went away 
without saying anything that time in the Spring,” was 
Harry’s idea. “ But, darling, I’ll make up for that 
now, see if I don’t ” 

I put up the hand that held the sweetpea. His arms 
that he was putting out to me fell to his sides again. 

“ Don’t, please don’t,” I begged him. “ It’s no use. 
I do mean it. Honour bright, I am not just saying 
this to make you ask me again and again. I am not 
going to marry you. I do not care for you.” 

His dark eyes stared blankly, as they well might. 
Last time they had looked deep into mine they had 
found adoration. And that was only a few months 
ago ; quite a short time, as time is counted ! 

He muttered, crestfallen, “ I thought you cared. I 
could have sworn it! . . . You were pulling my leg, 
then, all last summer ! ” 

This from him was almost funny! But I said quite 
gently, “ I wasn’t.” 


LOVE — AFTER THE INTERVAL 269 


“ I believed you liked me a little then,” said Harry 
Markham softly. 44 Will you tell me that? ” 

Now, is it kinder to tell the man whom one no 
longer loves that one did really love him once, or better 
to let him think that he was mistaken from the first? 
Uncertain, I sniffed at that sweetpea and said nothing. 

He lifted his head and asked quietly : 44 Some one 

else, then ? ” 

I turned to pull another sweetpea, shaking my head 
as vigorously as Elizabeth could have done. After all, 
there was nobody else . . . that wanted me! 

Harry’s voice, encouraged, said over my shoulder: 
44 Ah, then ! I could get you to like me again if you 
would only give me the chance, dear! Be kind to me. 
Look at me ” 

Unreasonably, perhaps, I felt a quick irritation over 
that caressing tone that held the note of insincerity 
as a soft flower holds a spoiling insect. 

I turned to look straight at him as he asked me. I 
met his dark eyes. I said bluntly : 44 Oh ! Why do 

you pretend like this? I know as well as you do that 
you don’t care for me yourself a bit ! ” 

He gave a quick involuntary movement of surprise. 
The charming humbug of the Harry-type seldom gives 
anybody credit for seeing, never for seeing through 
him. Immediately he pulled himself together to look 
cruelly injured. 

44 Not care for you? ” he echoed, indignantly. 
44 Look here, I’ve always thought you one of the sweet- 


270 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


est and straightest — I mean, the sweetest girl I ever 
met. The prettiest, too. If you knew how lovely you 
looked now at this minute with the sun on you ! 
Lovely and warm-hearted and true. If you cared for 
any man, by Jove, he could bank on you ! And he’d be 
the luckiest fellow in ” 

44 Perhaps,” I cut him short rather ungraciously. 
44 But I am afraid none of this that you say . . . For- 
give me, but none of it rings true to me.” 

44 Not true? You’re trying to make me out a 
liar?” retorted Harry heatedly. 44 Not true? A 
man doesn’t ask a girl to be his for keeps, my dear, 
unless he’s pretty serious about it. If it weren’t true, 
why on earth should I ask you to marry me now, 
Joan?” 

44 For a reason that I have guessed,” I said steadily. 
I moved on to the end of the hedge, turned up the path 
towards the garden gate. 

Harry followed. I felt that he was fuming and 
bewildered. He muttered: 44 What do you mean?” 

Without looking at him I replied : 44 1 think you’re 

asking me to accept you because another girl has re- 
fused you too often. You want to show another girl 
that you don’t care; that other people have jumped at 
you ! I know that some men have married for no bet- 
ter reason. You proposed to me out of pique. Now, 
isn’t that the truth? ” 

With the last word I stopped and faced him again. 
I saw his face change under my eyes. 

I insisted: 44 You don’t want to marry anybody but 


LOVE — AFTER THE INTERVAL 271 


the girl I introduced you to myself — Muriel Elvey ! ” 

Slowly the scarlet flush deepened on the young man’s 
face ; his eyes wavered, left mine. Utterly abashed he 
looked, shamefaced, miserably embarrassed; and how 
much younger in his awkwardness ! tie was a school- 
boy again, caught out in some wrong-doing that put 
him not only in the wrong, but made him ridiculous — 
a thing no man can stand. 

And no woman who is a woman can stand the sight 
of any man suffering thus ! He was at my mercy 
and my heart melted to him. Not with the old feeling. 
That, once dead, no power on earth can revive. Only 
a new feeling filled me; real kindliness towards him. 
Now that we could never be lovers I felt we might be 
friends. 

Impulsively I cried, in a softened voice, “ I couldn’t 
help guessing. You needn’t mind me, Harry! ” 

It was the first time that day that I’d called him 
by his name. 

The trouble in his face seemed lightened by a gleam. 
His eyes softened as they met mine again. I suppose 
he saw the offered friendliness in them. 

Deeply touched, he repeated boyishly, “ You are 
decent, Joan ! ” 

I laughed, repeating, “ You needn’t mind my having 
guessed ; I shan’t say anything ! ” I added, very 
gently, “ Won’t she have anything to do with you? ” 

Gloomily he shook his head ; the handsome head that 
so many girls found irresistible. “ Won’t,” he said, 
curtly. “ She’s turned me down half-a-dozen times, 


nz 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


but I’ve always thought that I might . . . might get 
round her. Until this last time when I’ve seen her 
with this fellow Holiday, down here ” 

I had a sharp stab of remembrance. “ Ah, yes. 
Her cousin,” I said as casually as I could. 

Harry, more humbly than I had ever heard him 
speak, said : “ He’s got that fine old place and every- 

thing. My people have only the money they made. I 
understand her preferring what Holiday could give 
her.” 

He concluded, huskily : “ He’s the fellow she will 

marry, I expect.” 

We were fellow-sufferers in the thought, Harry and 

I! 

With quick sympathy I laid my hand lightly on his 
red-tabbed shoulder. 

“ Poor old boy ! I’m so sorry.” 

“ You’re a little brick,” muttered Harry. Drop- 
ping his chin, he put a small grateful kiss upon my 
fingers as they lay on his jacket. 

It was this scene that met the eyes of Dick Holi- 
day as he turned the corner of the path, coming to see 
what had become of us. 


CHAPTER XXX 


COLONEL FIELDING DISCUSSES “ THE MYSTERY-GIRL ” 

“ I would rather scrub floors for a man than dust a table for a 
woman.” — Extract from Private Conversation. 


“But for loving, why, you would not, Sweet, 
If we prayed you, paid you, brayed you 
In a mortar, for you could not, Sweet ! ” 


Browning. 



HIS was something I wouldn’t have allowed to 
happen, could I have prevented it ! 


For Dick Holiday, of all people, to come 
upon me when I was having my hand kissed by Harry 
Markham, of all other people in the world ! 

Of course you see what Captain Holiday thought 
he had interrupted? 

A love-scene! 

He’d heard from me about the man who sailed for 
Salonika just before I left London, and that I’d joined 
up for the Land Army on that account. He’d tumbled 
to it that Harry, returned from Salonika, was “ the ” 
man. Now he saw, with his own eyes, this young staff- 
officer pressing his lips to the hand which I had put 
affectionately upon his red-tabbed shoulder. 

Naturally Captain Holiday thought this meant the 
Happy Ending to whatever misunderstanding I and the 
other young man had had. In his mind I suppose he 
was certain that he would soon have to congratulate us ! 


273 


i 


274 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


Of course he never betrayed by one twitch of his 
face what he thought of what I know he must have 
seen. 

He merely said quietly : “ Ah, here you are. The 

others are going, Miss Matthews.” 

“ Oh, are they? Yes, it must be getting late. 
Thank you so much for coming to tell me,” I said 
hurriedly. The two young men followed me out of 
the garden as I made my hasty way up to the house, 
fuming ! 

What could be more annoying, I ask you, than to 
be so “caught out”? Especially when one couldn’t 
possibly explain the meaning of the little incident ? 

I could not turn round and say to the young man 
behind me on the path “ Captain Holiday, I hope you 
won’t misunderstand what you saw just now. Captain 
Markham was kissing my hand, and perhaps it did look 
as if it were an illustration to a magazine love-story 1 
But it wasn’t that sort of kiss ! It wasn’t that sort of 
thing at all ! He and I have never been less in love with 
one another. Both of us happen to be hopelessly in 
love with somebody else ! For the first time in our lives 
we were feeling genuinely fond of each other in a 
friendly way because we were sorry for one another’s 
love tragedies. Nothing could have been more entirely 
platonic ! ” 

No. I couldn’t tell him this, true as it was. For 
one thing, even the best and simplest and truest ex- 
planations have a way of sounding “ thin.” Hence 
the golden rule “ Never explain.” Following it, I 


“ THE MYSTERY-GIRL ” 


275 


reached the house with my two cavaliers and found that 
the whole party were gathered outside the porch wait- 
ing for us. 

Our host was at the head of the horse in the dog- 
cart, where Muriel had already perched herself, and 
everybody was chattering over the great bunches of 
roses and sweetpeas given them by our hostess ... it 
was then that I realized that -Sybil’s new employers 
must be almost as hard up as we were ourselves. For 
how seldom it is that the gardens of the rich spare a 
single petal for the flowerless guest! But here the 
daughter of the house had stripped even her own win- 
dow-boxes of black pansies to make into a posy for me. 
Muriel, sitting up in the cart, called, smiling, “ Are you 
coming, Harry? I really must get back to poor dear 
Mother now. But if you want to walk,” with a co- 
quettish glance, “ my cousin will drive me ” 

I saw Dick Holiday’s quick step forward on the 
gravel. He was only too anxious, I could see, to re- 
spond to this invitation. But already Harry was be- 
fore him, poor Harry ! his face lighting up because his 
lady who refused him always could still be got to throw 
him a smile. , . . It was an irony of the Fate that had 
made so many girls ready to hang on the smiles of a 
man like Harry Markham. He sprang up, took the 
reins. 

She was driven away, her flower-face smiling over 
her other flowers, her little hand waving gaily; Dis- 
turber of the Peace that she was ! 

The walking-party — amidst a buzz of kindly fare- 


276 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


wells and “ come agains 99 and a last call from the mis- 
tress of the house of “ you wont forget that I should 
love a Land-girl 9 s wedding from here? 99 — set off down 
the road back to our Camp. 

I had been dreading the thought of a walk a deux 
with Captain Holiday; since Elizabeth would naturally 
stroll homewards at a snail’s pace with her adored 
“Falconer” off a chocolate-box lid. 

To my astonishment I found that I was to have this 
privilege ! I found that somehow it was arranged that 
Captain Holiday was walking with Elizabeth, briskly, 
in front. 

He didn’t want to speak to me, then? I was left to 
follow with my chum’s fiance. 

Colonel Fielding was remarkably nice and friendly 
to me for the whole of that walk. I seemed to have 
reached a stage when men became unsentimental and 
excellent friends with me. Was it, I wondered gloom- 
ily, because none of them ever fell in love with me any 
more? And as I chatted to Coloned Fielding of the 
“delightfulness” of the afternoon we’d just spent, I 
thought with a rueful little sigh of one young man who 
had been (presumably) a little sentimental about me. 

Mr. Richard Wynn, who’d written to ask me to 
marry him! because he had liked the child I had been, 
seven years ago. What must he have thought of me 
for never even answering his letter . . . ! 

I didn’t often remember that shadowy suitor. I for- 
got him again as I said to Colonel Fielding, walking 


“ THE MYSTERY-GIRL ” 


m 

beside me, “ How sweetly pretty Miss Elvey was look- 
ing!” 

He looked mischievous and said : “ Are you still 

afraid she’ll make me faithless to Elizabeth? ” 

“ My good young man, I don’t think she’ll try.” 

“ Oh, no ! She’d never want to,” he agreed serenely. 
“ It never was me the young lady was anxious to marry. 
I know who it is all right.” 

I looked at him eagerly. At last I was going to get 
a little light on the subject! At last I was going to 
hear another opinion about whether Muriel meant in 
the long run to say “ Yes ” or “ No ” to Captain Holi- 
day. 

I nodded towards his distant back as it turned a 
corner of the lane in front of us. I suggested to his 
friend “ You mean ? ” 

“ Er of course.” 

My heart felt absurdly heavy at the announcement. 
Had I still hoped that it could be otherwise? Silly 
of me! 

I asked, succeeding in not sounding wistful : “ Do 

you think, then, that she is in love with him after all, 
Colonel Fielding? ” 

Elizabeth’s young Colonel stopped on the road where 
we walked. He turned to me as if he hadn’t caught 
what I’d said. He frowned a little, and yet he was 
smiling under that absurdly soft golden feather of a 
moustache. He repeated: “In love? Miss Elvey? 
Of course not. Miss Elvey isn’t the kind of girl 


278 . A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


who would ever be in love with anybody whomso- 
ever.” 

I stopped too. We faced each othe~ on that road 
at a dead standstill, as people do when their talk be- 
comes more interesting to each other than their walk. 
I was more than eager to know exactly what this young 
man thought of the girl who had stolen my admirer, 
and who was probably going to marry the other man 
whom I myself admired. The girl whom all men loved 
and of whom all women were jealous. What was 
Colonel Fielding’s view of her? 

“ You told me, the day you got engaged, that when 
you had time you would tell me all about Muriel’s 
* kind,’ ” I reminded him. “ Tell me now.” 

“ Oh ... er ... I don’t know that there’s so 
much to tell,” he said, looking at me. “ She’s just one 
of the mystery-girls who seem to have everything a girl 
should have; looks, go, charm, laughter. But . . . er 
. . . Well! She hasn’t got love. That power’s just 
been left out of her composition, Miss Matthews. 
She’s cold ; she’s null. She’s — she’s just the opposite 
to your little friend,” his voice grew tender, “ and 
mine.” 

“Elizabeth? But — except for you — Elizabeth 
doesn’t like men. Muriel doesn’t like anything bet- 
ter!” 

He shook his head, the only man’s head I’d met that 
seemed full of “ feminine ” intuitions. 

“ Muriel doesn’t like men,” he told me. “ She likes 


46 THE MYSTERY-GIRL” 


279 

what men can give her. Attention. A good time. 
Admiration ad lib . The cachet of being seen about* 
queening it over them. The sense of power; the at- 
mosphere of . . . er . . . incense. That’s what Mu- 
riel asks of men. Nothing else.” 

Puzzled, I said : 44 1 don’t understand.” 

44 You would not.” 

44 I’ve always thought Muriel a finished flirt, yet you 
say she’s cold ” 

44 Flirts are,” declared Elizabeth’s lover. 44 Er . . . 
I’ve heard that the true drunkard dislikes the actual 
taste of spirits. Well! The true flirt hates the ac- 
tual idea of . . . er . . . Love.” 

He blushed as if with unconquerable shyness, but 
went on : 44 Do you know how the Muriel-type looks 

upon a kiss? As something to be got out of . . . er 
... or got over.” 

44 1 wonder,” said I. 

44 1 know,” said he. 44 Plenty of them, the Mystery- 
girls.” 

44 Why 4 Mystery,’ Colonel Fielding? ” 

44 Because it is a mystery why they’re made like that. 
Avid for what they call 4 a good time ’ — they who can’t 
taste the real good times ! ” 

44 You mean the times like — like that tea we had in 
the hayfield ; that lunch of your mother’s with her old 
love.” 

— 44 And so forth. Yes . . . Ah, how they surround 
themselves with every outward sign of 4 a good time,’ 


280 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


how they swallow them up into that gap that can never 
be filled in their hearts. I remember one Mystery-girl 
— but I’m talking too much.” 

“ No, no ! Tell me about her.” 

44 Well,” said my new friend, 44 she was one of them, 
but not like Muriel ; a nicer-natured girl altogether, 
married, and a topping little mother. She said to me 
once with all her soul in her pretty eyes, 4 D’you know, 
the two wishes of my heart, Colonel Fielding? One is 
a pearl string down to here. The other is about ten 
silver-fox skins made into a stole.’ I looked at her 
(she was a picture). I said, 4 What rum things to 
choose for hearts-wishes ! ’ She said, 4 Beautiful 
things?’ I said, 4 Well, easy to get, anyhow.’ She 
said, 4 Very expensive!’ I said, 4 Not they! They 
only cost . . . money.’ We both meant what we said. 
She was sweeter than Miss Muriel, too. Some of them 
aren’t even as sweet. But all of them remind me of 
those — er — gaily-coloured flowers — without scent. 
If I like them, I’m sorry for them. If I don’t like them, 
I’m sorry for the Race. Give me the palest musk- 
rose . . 

From his face he was thinking again of his Caris- 
sima. . . . She meant all sweetness to him. 

I said : 44 But men swarm round those others ! ” 

44 Yes; didn’t I tell you the other day how weak the 
average man is on Love? He’s all for the lovely . . . 
er . . . shell of the Mystery-girl. He adores to be 
tantalized and baffled by it . . . because he doesn’t 


“ THE MYSTERY-GIRL ” 


281 


know what that means, until he’s . . . er . . . mar- 
ried and tied to it for life.” 

“And then?” I asked. 

“ Then he thinks Love must have been overrated 
by . . . er . . . these fiction-writers. Or he imagines 
that he’s quite happy, because no one seems to think 
he isn’t. Or the Muriel 6 pretends ’ to love him and 
he doesn’t know the difference, because he ‘ never , even 
in dreams , lias seen the things that are more excellent .’ 
Er ... I do talk too much, Miss Matthews; I bore 
you.” 

“ Indeed you do not,” I said. “ All the week I have 
heard nothing discussed but the feeding of the two 
baby-calves, and the butter-market. Even the most 
enthusiastic farm-worker likes to go back to the prob- 
lems of other lives sometimes.” 

“ Still, you look as if I’d . . . er . . . depressed 
you.” 

“ Oh, no,” I protested. But he had depressed me. 
If his theories about Muriel were true, she would never 
make Captain Holiday happy ! Wasn’t this enough to 
sadden me? 

In his quick, unmasculine way Colonel Fielding 
seemed to read my thoughts. 

He said : “ She — Miss Muriel — has an eye to the 

main chance. She simply must have the things that 
people who’ve got . . . er . . . love can afford to do 
without. She covets that lovely old country-house 
that’s been turned into a hospital. It’ll be turned back 


282 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


some day. I really think she’d like to see herself mis- 
tress of it. Up to now I expect she’s hit everything 
she’s aimed for. But . . .” 

He paused and smiled, a curious, encouraging smile, 
at me. 

He went on : “ I don’t think ” 

He paused again before he uttered the very last 
words that I expected to hear coming out of his mouth. 

“ I don’t think she’s going to get our friend . . . er 
. . . Richard Wynn.” 

“What?” I said, sharply. “Colonel Fielding, 
what made you say that? ” 

He opened his eyes at me. “ Say what? ” 

“You said ‘Richard Wynn.’ What has he got to 
do with it? ” I asked, stupefied. “ Do you know him? 

Because I do, and I ” 

“ Know him ? ” The young man looked at me as 
if I’d gone mad. “ Know Wynn? Holiday? ” 

I gasped. “ You said 4 Richard Wynn,’ ” I re- 
peated. “ Did you mean to say Captain Holiday ? ” 
Elizabeth’s fiance was still gazing upon me in be- 
wilderment. Then he uttered these further strange 
words ; words that took me more aback than any I’d 
heard since I was a child reading The Arabian Nights 
by the firelight that criss-crossed my schoolroom ceil- 
ing with the giant shadow of the wire fireguard. 

He asked : 44 Miss Matthews, do you mean to say 

that you didn’t know Dick Holiday and Richard 
Wynn were . . . er . . . the same person? ” 


CHAPTER XXXI 


A FEW FACTS ABOUT RICHARD WYNN 

“Look in my face, my name is Might-Have-Been. 

I am also called No-More, Too-Late, Farewell.” 

— Rossetti. 


S ENSATION! 

In fact, of all the many thunderbolts that 
had fallen upon me since I had been working on 
the Land, this (as Vic would say) had cleft it. 

Blank bewilderment was my first feeling. 

My next feeling was, curiously enough, that I wasn’t 
surprised after all. 

I thought “ I knew it all the time ! All the time 
at the bottom of my mind I felt that there was some- 
thing of the kind . . .” And swiftly my thoughts 
flew back to that day on the hillside when I had been 
feeding Mrs. Price’s chickens. 

That was the first time that I had seen Captain 
Holiday out of khaki. 

As I’d caught sight of his light figure in those 
ancient tweeds and that disreputable scarecrow’s hat 
I had at once sensed something familiar. Through the 
mists of forgetfulness a gleam of recognition had 
struggled, and I had actually asked : “ Isn’t your name 
Richard Wynn? ” 

He’d denied it No. He had put me off with 

283 


284 A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 

“ My name is Holiday, you know ” ; leaving me wonder- 
ing why I had asked such an idiotic question. 

And now, weeks afterwards, here was this friend of 
his letting it out casually that the young man’s name 
was both Holiday and Richard Wynn ! 

What was the meaning of this ? Why did he 

A hundred questions crowded into my mind. Other 
questions chased each other over the face of Colonel 
Fielding as he looked at me. We were standing as if 
turned into a couple of milestones on that country road, 
the bright evening sunlight dazzling our eyes. There 
wasn’t time for more than a very few of these questions. 
I couldn’t monopolize Elizabeth’s fiance for the rest of 
the evening! Yet I had to get in my questions first. 

Quickly pulling myself together and collecting what 
senses seemed to be left to me, I began: 

“ Colonel Fielding, what you’ve just told me is a 
great surprise.” 

“ Er — so it seems,” returned Colonel Fielding, still 
regarding me in a puzzled manner. “ I say, I am 
sorry if I have . . . er . . . dropped any sort of 
brick. It just slips out sometimes. I mean, calling 
old Dick 6 Wynn ’ instead of 6 Holiday,’ even now. 
One ought to be quite accustomed to his being 6 Holi- 
day ’ by this time. It’s . . . er . . . five years since 
he took the name, isn’t it? ” 

“ Don’t ask me,” I returned, bewildered. “ I didn’t 
know he’d 4 taken ’ any name at all.” 

Colonel Fielding glanced at me again as if he won- 
dered whether I had got a touch of sun, and said: 


RICHARD WYNN 


285 


“ But I thought you were . . . er . . . quite an old 
friend of his? And when you said just now that you 
knew him as Richard Wynn ” 

“ This is going to be very difficult to explain,” I 
exclaimed, helplessly. “ But we can’t stand here till 
ten o’clock. We’ll talk going along.” 

, We went on walking slowly along the road; Eliza- 
beth having disappeared with that other young man 
and his two names. 

I went on : “ Why did he 6 take 9 the name of Holi- 

day?” 

“ Why, because his uncle wished it,” was Colonel 
Fielding’s reply, still in that voice of not being able 
to make out why I didn’t know all this already. 
“ You did know — didn’t you? — that his . . . er . . . 
uncle was that old Mr. Holiday who owned all the 
property about here ; the white house, the lodge, the 
Prices’ farm, and all the lot? ” 

“Yes, I’d heard that.” 

“ Well, about five years ago this old man, who was 
a hardened old . . . er . . . bachelor, thought he’d 
like to leave his property to his favourite nephew, who 
happened to be our friend. Dick was then in Canada. 
Did you know he’d gone in for ranching in Canada? ” 

“Yes, I knew ‘Mr. Wynn’ had,” said I. 

“ Well ! The condition was that he wasn’t to be 
‘ Mr. Wynn ’ any more. He was to assume the name 
that went with the property. It’s . . . er . . . often 
done; by deed-poll, as they call it,” explained Colonel 
Fielding, as if to a child. “You pay — I forget how 


286 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


much, and then you have it in the Gazette and the 
Morning Post and things that your name isn’t Smith 
any more, but Jones or Robinson or . . . anything 
you choose. You understand that? ” 

“ Oh, yes ! I’ve heard about such a thing before, 
thanks ! ” I laughed a little impatiently. 66 It isn’t 
that that I don’t understand. It’s about Mr. Richard 
Wynn ” 

“ Richard Holiday now,” Colonel Fielding corrected 
me. “Well! He stayed in Canada until this . . . er 
. . . w r ar broke out. And then . . . Am I just to 
run over what happened to him, Miss Matthews ? ” 

I reddened a little at having to seem eager to hear 
all I could about this young man, who was nothing to 
me. . . . Yet how could I help being eager? I loved 
him. And I knew so little about him; only the little 
that I had seen. I must hear, from his friend, all that 
he would tell me of Dick. . . . Whether Wynn or 
Holiday, his first name would remain the dearest on 
earth to me! 

“ Please,” I said. 

So Colonel Fielding’s lady-like voice took up the 
tale. “ Dick Holiday came over with that first lot 
of Canadians, I think they were. ‘ Little Black 
Devils’ — you know the badge? So do the . . . er 
. . . Boches! It was Salisbury Plain for him that 
winter . . . er . . . mud and circuses! Then France 
at last; and Ypres. There he was wounded and 

gassed ” 

“ And gassed ! ” 


RICHARD WYNN 


287 


“ Yes, and . . . er . . . why he didn’t get his com- 
mission on the field I can’t tell you. He earned it all 
right, as well as his Military Medal.” 

“ I’m sure he did ! ” 

“ Then I met him in hospital ; hadn’t see him since 
we were at Haileybury together,” went on Colonel 
Fielding. “ Then we both got out again together. 
Then he was wounded again . . . er . . . badly, in 
the knee. Also shell-shock. That was last winter. 
He did get his commission then. They brought him 
home and put him on . . . er . . . what they called 
6 light ’ duty at home for a bit. It meant he had to 
do the office-work of three . . . er . . . men at Mill- 
shott Barracks ” 

“ Ah ! ” I cried involuntarily. A detail that had 
escaped me for months sprung vividly up in my con- 
sciousness at last. “ Millshott! ” That had been the 
name of the barracks stamping the notepaper of that 
letter — that fated letter signed “Richard Wynn.” 
. . . Why, why in the name of everything that I most 
coveted now had I not answered that letter at once? I 
might have had him. I might have had him. . . . 

Little guessing my thoughts, Colonel Fielding went 
on with his biographical sketch. 

“At Millshott Dick had a breakdown. Er . . . not 
to be wondered at, if you knew half he’d been through 
ever since the . . . er . . . Somme. It was when he 
was in hospital that that uncle of his died suddenly. 
That meant he had come in for all this place here. So 
when Dick was put on sick leave, it was . . . er . . • 


288 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


down here that he came.” Colonel Fielding gave a 
sort of little comprehensive gesture about the slanting 
Welsh landscape, with the blonde squares that meant 
hay-stubble tilted halfway up the sides of the hills. 
44 And • . • er . • . here he is. He’s ever so much 
better, of course; pottering about the . . . er . . . 
farm, and all that, suits him down to the ground. He 
looks practically . . . er . . . himself again. . . . 
Er ” 

Here the young Colonel broke off and glanced at 
me, almost as if he were asking the question, 44 Is there 
anything else that you want to know ? ” 

I answered that glance by saying, quietly, 44 Thank 
you so much for telling me all this. There is only one 
more thing ” 

44 Yes? ” 

44 All that I said was in confidence,” I told him, 
rather confused. 44 My being surprised about . . . 
those names. My asking you any questions. I can’t 
explain, Colonel Fielding. Only, it will remain between 
ourselves.” 

44 But of course ! ” agreed Dick Holiday’s friend, 
very quickly and quietly. 

I am sure I don’t know what he thought. I don’t 
know what he said later to Elizabeth, who, surprised 
at her lover’s long desertion, was waiting just outside 
the entrance to our Camp. I don’t know if Elizabeth 
wondered over the interminable conversation which I 
seemed to have been having with her Beloved all the 
way back from the tea-party. 


RICHARD WYNN 


289 


I did not tell that good little chum one word of 
what it had all been about. I — who had unbosomed 
myself to her in the old days on the subject of my 
love-affair until she was sick of the very name of 
Harry ! — did not feel that I could confide to her a 
syllable about these new developments in the affaire 
Richard Wynn. No! I didn’t want to speak to her 
about him or about Muriel ! I didn’t want to confide 
in her the quite staggering news that Harry Markham 
had proposed to me in the garden; nor what I’d said 
to him, nor why! 

By the way, I am afraid every thought of poor 
Harry and his perplexities had been swept clean out 
of my mind by the much more staggering conversation 
that had followed almost immediately upon his proposal, 
on that never-to-be-forgotten Sunday afternoon; what 
an extraordinary “ Day of Rest ” it had turned out ! 

But, as every Land-girl knows, the most paralys- 
ingly interesting Day Off cannot stop the relentless re- 
turn of the Work-a-day Week. 


CHAPTER XXXII 


BUTTER-MAKING WITH ACCOMPANIMENT 

“There grows a flower in our garden 
Men call it Mary gold. 

And if you will not when you may 
You shall not when you wolde.” 

Folk-song. 

O N Monday I was churning again for dear life 
as if I had no thoughts of a world beyond 
that of the big, cool, whitewashed dairy with 
its slate floor, its table set with pudding-dishes in which 
fresh cream was standing, its tall, covered, red-and- 
black crocks holding two gallons of sour cream for the 
butter. 

Helped by Mrs. Price, I tipped the sour cream into 
the big brown barrel-shaped churn; I added the hot 
water; I gave a few turns to the handle of the churn. 
Then I took the bung out of the hole to let the air 
escape, having been warned, the first day of my churn- 
ing, by an alarmed cry from the farmer’s wife: “ Let 
the air out ! The air out ! Mercy ! The girl will 
burst the churn for me. Don’t you know it’s like you 
have to hold a baby up when he’s halfway through 
feeding? Don’t you ever forget that again, my dear ! ” 
I did not forget again; and now the whole process 
290 


BUTTER-MAKING 291 

was familiar to me of that homely miracle of butter- 
making. 

Round and round went the handle — not violently 
and spasmodically, as in my early days of setting about 
any job, but rhythmically and steadily. Oh, yes, I’d 
learnt my lesson of letting “ things do themselves ” ; 
never again would I imagine that violence meant 
strength, any more than one need suppose that some 
one speaking in a loud voice must be talking sense ! It 
was Dick Holiday who had first taught me that, and 
had taught the principles of handling anything, whether 
it was spade or churn . . . 

Round and round ... I glanced at the tiny glass 
“ window 99 of the- churn. No. Not yet was it 
crowded with any little yellow granules that announce 
that the butter was “ coming.” Today the butter was 
obstinate. 

Round, and round ... In my head, too, words that 
had haunted me began to go round and round. 

“ Dick Holiday . . . Richard Wynn . . . Dick 
Wynn . . . Richard Holiday . . 99 

I thought, 66 Am I to let Captain Holiday know I’ve 
found out that he is Richard Wynn? ” 

My first answer to this question of my thoughts was 
a vigorous “ Yes.” 

I decided, mentally, “ Yes, I’ll tell Captain Holiday 
that I know all about it. After all, he has been pull- 
ing my leg ever since I met him ! All the time I’ve 
been on this farm he has known that I am Joan Mat- 
thews, the girl to whom he wrote that letter signed by 


292 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


his other name ! And he’s never allowed me to know 
that he was the man who wrote the letter. It will 
make him look awfully foolish when I tax him with 
it. Serve him right! I shall tell him, just to be able 
to have the laugh over him for once ! ” 

And I went on churning after another glance at 
the little window; no sign of a crumb of butter on it 
yet. Patience! Churn away. . . . 

The butter wasn’t coming; but a fresh thought 
came. 

This was a “ No ” as vigorous as my “ Yes ” had 
been. 

“No! I can’t tell him,” I mused. “If I did it 
would seem like reminding him that he did, under the 
name of Richard Wynn, ask me to marry him. It 
would seem as if I were dropping hints that he might 
try again. Begging him, now that I knew him, to 
ask me a second time. Oh! horrible thought. For it 
isn’t me he wants to marry now. It must be since 
the Spring that he’s fallen in love with his cousin. I’d 
far better go on, pretending not to know that he’s ever 
been called anything but Holiday ! ” 

Round and round . . . Still no butter! Mrs. Price 
would say it was a sign that my sweetheart wasn’t 
pleased. I, who had no sweetheart to please, must 
work patiently still. . . . 

Another thought — . 

— Will you forgive this chapter for being so much 
about just my meditations? There are times in one’s 
life when thought brings about changes as big as any 


BUTTER-MAKING 


293 


act could do. One of these times came to me in that 
spotless cool dairy, with me flushed and hatless, toiling 
at that churn. 

— It swung back to “ Yes ” again. 

“ I must tell him,” I mused. “ I never amswered his 
letter. How rude that must seem to him! He said 
not to write if he were not to come. But a letter de- 
mands a line just to say it’s been received. I must at 

least explain to him why ” 

I checked myself, remembering. 

“ Of course I have explained to him already ! That 
day we were feeding the chickens on the hillside! I 
tokl him the whole story of the letter I’d had from a 
young man who reminded me of him ! Why, I can 
hear Dick Holiday’s voice as he barked at me 6 Threw 
the letter away? You can’t have thrown it away!’ 
. . . To think that it was his letter! Anyhow, he 
heard then, without my knowing what I was explaining, 
what became of his address ! ” 

Here I changed hands without stopping the churn 
in the way that I was taught by Mrs. Price. 

I thought: “He knew everything, did he? I’ve 
a good mind to let him know that I know now as well ! ” 
Then I thought again : “ I would, if there weren’t 

any Muriel in the case. Muriel stops it all . . .” 

And then desperately I thought, still churning bus- 
ily : “ Why does everything happen to me when it’s 

either too soon — or too late? I fell in love with 
Harry, but by the time he proposed to me it was too 
late. Dick wrote to ask me to marry him, but it was 


294 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


too soon. I hadn’t seen what he was like now. Ah, 
if I’d known! If I could have foreseen! Wouldn’t I 
have written off by return of post to tell him he might 
come and see me ! ” 

I sighed. “ Too late. He doesn’t want to, now. 
Ah, if he did!” 

Then without warning or reason there flashed into 
my mind the queerest thought of all. “ Supposing he 
does w r ant to? Supposing all this about Muriel is 
a mistake? Supposing it’s me he does care for all the 
time? ” 

I said aloud, “ What lunatic rubbish ! ” and bent 
to look once more at the window of the churn. 

Hurray ! A few precious golden granules were 
forming on the glass. The butter was coming at last. 
Cheers! Much encouraged, I went on making the big 
churn spin round and round. 

And as I did so, that lunatic theory spun in my 
head. Yes! Suppose Dick Holiday-Wynn did care 
for me. Hadn’t he sought me out, followed me, taken 
the keenest interest in everything I did or said? 
Hadn’t he confided in me? . . . Ah! T^hat story of 
the girl to whom he’d proposed, and who had said 
neither “ Yes ” nor “ No ” to him! Why had I made 
so sure that this had meant Muriel? Supposing it had 
been . . . me? Supposing this had been his way of 
telling me? 

Here a change in the sound of the milk in the churn, 
dashed round and round, warned me that the butter 


BUTTER-MAKING 295 

was “ knocking.” I churned with a will, and with a 
memory suddenly warming my heart. 

That day of the thunderstorm in the hayfield, when 
we had sheltered together under the elms ! Hadn’t he 
said “ Dear ” to me? Had he meant it? 

There was a possibility, a wonderful, dizzy, blissful 
possibility that 

“ How’s that butter, Joan?” asked a bright voice 
that brought me abruptly back from possibilities to 
facts as Mrs. Price stepped quickly into the dairy and 
up to the churn. “Yes! That’s it, now, my 
dear ” 

For we had unscrewed the round lid and taken it 
off the churn. 

Yes; on the top of the butter-milk, with its rich and 
poignant smell there floated what might have been the 
golden ball cast by the Princess of the fairy-tale into 
the fountain. It was accomplished, that horpely 
miracle on which town-dwellers have been used to waste 
never a thought. 

England’s butter! 

For years English people took butter for granted. 
Pre-war butter was just something that came out of 
a shop and appeared as if automatically in silver dishes 
with parsley about it. They never inquired what jour- 
neys it had made before ever it reached that shop; 
whether from Wales, Ireland, Holland, or Denmark. 
It was there; it happened. (“Pass the butter, 
please.”) Carelessly they spread it between hot toast 


296 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


and strawberry jam; casually they left it in unwanted 
pyramids at the sides of their plates. In kitchens they 
cast it in lumps into pans that concocted sauces ; they 
kneaded it by the fistful into rich cakes. They 
smarmed it on to the fur of petted cats so that the 
creatures, licking it from their coats, need not stray. 
Some of us can even remember laying “ wobs ” of it 
(the size of a week’s ration) on the school-room lin- 
oleum and thus organizing slides for flying feet in 
Blake-ily protected school-boots. Only at nursery tea- 
tables, perhaps, was the warning ever heeded “ Now, 
then ! Waste not, want not ! ” 

We have paid for our extravagant waste of other 
things besides butter. . . . 

And nowadays perhaps more interest is taken in 
the process that produces such butter as is allowed 
to us. As carefully as one who grades yellow ame- 
thysts I tipped up the churn, let the butter-milk run 
out into the appointed crock, and washed, with cold 
spring water, every granule of my precious butter off 
the lid of the churn. I collected it in a milk-white 
wooden bowl with more water; I worked it with that 
scoop which Mrs. Price called the “ Llwy-y-menyn,” a 
spade-shaped thing, carved out of a single piece of 
pear-wood and having a flat round handle with a 
simple design for printing the pat. The farmer’s 
wife told me it was more than a hundred years old; 
how strange to think that more than a century ago — 
in the year perhaps of Waterloo! — some clever hand 


BUTTER-MAKING 


297 


had cut and carved the tool which was to do its tiny 
“ bit ” in the war for England’s food ! 

I wielded it happily today, with that daringly happy 
thought still warm at my heart. 

“ Salt, Joan,” said Mrs. Price, handing me the 
wooden box. I added the salt ; worked the butter 
again, then put it aside in its corner. I had to leave 
it for a night to set. 

And my thoughts were left, as it were, to set also. 

For two days I heard and saw nothing of the Lodge 
party. By this time I had made up my mind how I 
should behave to Captain Holiday, alias Richard 
Wynn, next time that I saw him. I should observe him 
closely. I should take my courage in both hands. I 
should say to him : “ Captain Holiday, I want to 

speak to you. Do you know, I don’t think it is quite 
fair to make half-confidences to one’s friends ! If you 
confide in them about a given subject you ought to tell 
them the whole of the story. Not begin — and then 
leave off midway. For instance, you began weeks 
ago to tell me the story of that girl who wouldn’t say 
whether she would marry you or not. And you don’t 
tell me how that story is getting on! You simply say 
* Good-morning 9 and ask me questions about myself. 
I should like to know about your affair, since you did 
allow me to hear that there was one. And now that 
the girl is here in Careg ” 

Here I meant to break off. Or rather, here I knew 
that Captain Holiday would interrupt in his brusquest 


298 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


tone. He would be quite certain to say “ The girl 
here? What d’you mean by that? ” 

I intended to answer : “ Oh ! I’m so sorry if I 

have said the wrong thing! But I was quite certain 
that you meant me to guess who 4 the ’ girl was ! I 
thought it was the one who is staying with her mother 
in your house now. But if I’ve said anything I 

oughtn’t to have said, Mr. Wynn ” 

Here I’d intended to break off again. I should 
not need to emphasize the “ Mr. Wynn.” I’d just 
let it drop perfectly casually. He would rise to it 
all right! 

He would say, or snap, or bark “ How did you know 
I had another name? ” And I could take it quite 
lightly by saying “ Oh, doesn’t everybody know that ? ” 
After which, I thought, it would be his turn to be 
hopelessly puzzled. He would wonder if I’d known 
ever since I had been on the farm. . . . He’d ask ques- 
tions, he’d give himself away, he’d show me what he 
meant! That was what I wanted! To know what 
he did mean, whether it was about Muriel Elvey or me 
or both of us. And now I should find out and put an 
end to all this hectic suspense. 

I had got it all planned by the Wednesday of that 
week. 

But alas for all human plans! Especially those 
which have anything to do with what one is going to 
say to young men. I ask any girl who reads this 
story to bear me out. One never says what one 
thought one was going to say so effectually. These 


BUTTER-MAKING 


299 


brilliant conversational openings are not given. These 
happy retorts do not come off. Nothing occurs that 
one had hoped. 

Only the unexpected happens; if that. For what 
did I hear, on the Thursday of that week, about Cap- 
tain Holiday? 

Why, that I was not to see him at all. 

He had left Careg. He had gone away ! 


CHAPTER XXXIII 


OUR ” GERMANS 


“ The Stranger within my gates, 

He may be evil or good, 

But I cannot tell what powers control — 
What reasons sway his mood; 

Nor when the Gods of his far-off land 
May re-possess his blood.” 


— Kipling. 



ONE away! 


■w- The news was given to me by Elizabeth, 
who had it from her fiance , Colonel Fielding. 
His friend and host, Captain Holiday, had gone up 


to London to attend a medical board ; also he had busi- 


ness which might keep him away for some time. 

He’d be away for weeks ! 

A great blankness fell upon me, and when it lifted 
I felt that I had been pushed rudely out of my fool’s 


paradise. 


Care for me? Of course, he couldn’t care for me. 
Men don’t go away without a single word of good- 
bye from girls of whom they care at all. I had an 
example of that in Harry. He and Captaiq Holiday 
cared for me about equally ! That is, not two straws ! 

I had been a lunatic to delude myself into the belief 
that I was the girl of whom Dick Holiday had held 
forth to me — “Just the girl I want!” 

Not Joan Matthews! No, no, Muriel Elvey was the 


300 


“ OUR ” GERMANS 


301 


girl he’d meant all that time. Yes ! I was now once 
more miserably certain of that, in spite of all that 
Colonel Fielding had said. 

“ Men,” as Elizabeth declares, “ are such poor 
judges of what girl another man might want to 
marry ! ” 

Meanwhile Mrs. Elvey and her daughter were still 
ensconced at the Lodge, where they were to stay, it 
seemed, until their host returned. I heard all the 
news about them, for “ you know what gossips men 
are,” says Elizabeth, “ men who pretend that we have 
the monopoly of this fault i ” 

It was Colonel Fielding who hinted to Elizabeth — 
who told me — that he fancied those ladies were glad 
of a comfortable little country place whereat to stay 
on the cheap now that they had let their London mai- 
sonnette. He had an idea that a good deal of Mrs. 
Elvey’s money had gone, lately, in one of the many 
commercial enterprises that the war had brought down 
and down. 

Which was another reason why pretty Miss Muriel 
would be glad enough to hook (if she could) a cousin 
who was also a landed proprietor ! Obviously she 
meant to stay on while there was the ghost of a chance 
of her being asked to stay for good! 

These comments were not mine, by the way, but 
more of Elizabeth’s -fiance's opinions. Really that 
young man had as broad a streak of what is called 
“ feminine cattishness ” in his composition as any girl 
that ever I met! 


302 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


Still, for those weeks before the harvest, he was the 
only channel for me to a world that held Dick Holiday. 
It was through him that I heard that the medical board 
had decided that Captain Holiday’s nerves required 
another six weeks’ rest before he returned to light duty 
again. 

He remained away. 

The only gleam of silver to this black cloud for 
me was that he remained away, not only from me, but 
from Muriel as well. 

Wasn’t this rather curious? 

Then I decided that perhaps he was giving Muriel 
time to make up her mind about him while he was away. 
Perhaps he clung to that hoary-headed, white-whisk- 
ered, mendacious old theory that “ absence makes the 
heart grow fonder.” 

By the time a heart is already involved it is too 
66 fond ” to admit of any change ! So I found out to 
my cost. And if there is no heart in the case, as 
Colonel Fielding declared, how can it 44 grow ” any- 
thing at all? 

Muriel would remain whatever Muriel was. 

I had a note from her one day, scented with her 
special perfume, to ask me and Elizabeth to come up 
to tea at the Lodge “ as she found that we were able 
to go out to tea on Sundays.” 

Elizabeth went. I made a polite excuse and stayed 
under the trees outside the hut with Vic. 

The fact was I felt I just couldn’t bear my first 
sight of The Lodge, Dick Holiday’s bachelor abode, 


“OUR” GERMANS 


303 


to be shown to me as a frame for the picture of Muriel, 
sitting there in his easy chair, pouring out tea for his 
friends out of his teapot, offering light cakes that his 
old housekeeper had made, ringing his bell, behaving 
altogether as if everything that was his were already 
hers — himself included. 

This would happen. I felt it! But I didn’t — 
oh — I didn’t want to have it rubbed in before the 
time ! 

So I stayed away and tried to cultivate a philosophi- 
cal attitude of mind. A hundred years hence it would 
all be the same, whether Dick Holiday had married his 
pretty cousin, or whether I had taken the chance that 
once was mine, and had written to say “ Yes ” to 
Richard Wynn! 

Further, it didn’t matter to England (who must 
be fed) whether one of her Land-girls was blissfully 
happy or was unlucky in love. But it did matter 
that her harvest should prosper and should be brought 
safely in. 

This last question was one that weighed very heavily, 
those days, on the mind of that gentle giant, our em- 
ployer, Mr. Price. 

I used to meet him striding over the land on those 
stilt-long legs of his, or leaning over gates and con- 
templating the big stretches of gold that were the 
cornfields, with his grey tweed cap pushed a little to 
one side over a frown of thoughtful anxiety between 
those ingenuous, intelligent blue eyes of his. 

But that frown would always give place to a smile 


304? 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


for any of his workers that he encountered, and a 
“ Well, fine day again today. Beautiful weather it 
is, really! Let us hope it keeps up for another ten 
days, and then we shall do all right, if only ” 

Ah, that was the cause for anxiety! 

“ If only we had a few more to help with us, now, 
to bring it in ! ” 

“ Mr. Price, we’ll all work,” I assured him one 
morning, “ like two ! ” 

“ Indeed, I know that. You are doing splendidly,” 
he said kindly. “ But you can’t do more than flesh and 
blood, after all ! And, dear me ! ” — he pushed the cap 

yet further to one side — “ when I think Now, this 

farm is only just under a thousand acres.” His blue 
eyes swept the green-and-rusty-gold view of it. 

“ Sixty acres I used to have under corn,” he went 
on, “and now what have I got? One hundred and 
fifty ! I wouldn’t have believed it if you’d told me in 
’Fourteen. And then I had all the men. Even then 
we considered we had a big enough job on at harvest 

time. But now Who is there? Myself and 

Ivor and the soldier-substitute, and ” 

He went off murmuring to himself, shaking his 
tweed-capped head in a worried way over the prob- 
lem that gave him more than three times the work 
he had known before the war, but to be done by one- 
fourth of the staffs that had been his in peace-time ! 

All over the country, as we knew, that problem 
stared the farmers of 1918 in the face. 


“OUR” GERMANS 


305 


We Land Girls were doing our bit towards help- 
ing to solve it. Yes ! Elizabeth and Yic and I, with 
all the other Vies and Dorises, the Aggies and Jeans, 
and Gladyses, and Eileens of Britain. But even so 
there were not yet enough of us trained and able to 
cope with the problem. We were ready to give all 
our time, and all our strength, and all our good-will. 

But all the good-will in the world does not turn 
a woman, however much else she can accomplish, into 
a creature that can do a man’s day’s work in the 
harvest-field. Ask the farmers, who have nothing but 
praise for their loyal Land Girls. 

They will tell you, as Mr. Price would, that we have 
been splendid, that we can milk, tend stock, clean out 
sheds, drive the motor-tractors, carry out the jobs 
of which there are never any end about the farm, and 
take the places of the farm-boys now at the Front with 
the utmost credit to our sex, but 

But it still takes the strength of two of us to do 
the work of one of them. 

More workers, still more workers, needed on Eng- 
land’s harvest! Every day the corn ripening that 
should feed England; every day the boats going down 
by means of which England was to be fed! 

Do you wonder that my own private worries sank 
into the background for a space? I was surprised to 
find that the thought of Dick Holiday could be kept 
well at the back of my mind; and that I could even 
stop myself from grieving fruitlessly over the bitter- 


306 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


ness of the idea that he might have been mine, and 
from sentimentalizing over my (very vague) memories 
of him as a lad of nineteen at my home. 

I was “ seriously wounded ” in the love-fight. But 
I could keep myself well in hand. I reflected that now 
I knew why men take their love disappointments in a 
more balanced way (at least outwardly) than women 
were wont to do. Men have not only work, but more 
interesting work with which to fill their baffled hearts. 
As a result of our taking to these jobs, perhaps there 
would now be fewer women in the world who would 
allow themselves to be warped and blighted by un- 
happy love affairs. 

At least it was something to hope for! thought I, 
turning from my own problem to that of the farmers. 

The solution came — at all events to Mr. Price and 
some of his friends in the neighbourhood. 

One smiling morning, as Elizabeth, Vic, and I 
tramped to work along the lanes, the solution over- 
took and passed us. 

It took the form of a big dray drawn by two grey 
horses and driven by a rather pale-faced young ser- 
geant in khaki with one empty sleeve ; on this dray sat 
comfortably a group of six or seven men not wounded at 
all, apparently, wearing grey coats and dark trousers 
patched with big ovals of scarlet and bright blue cloth. 
On their heads they wore — all except one of them — 
small round caps having red bands and a button in 
the front. They were blond, sunburnt, heavy-look- 


“ OUR ” GERMANS 307 

ing; and they turned an inquiring stare upon us as 
the dray went by. 

With one voice Vic, Elizabeth and I exclaimed in- 
voluntarily : i 

“ Germans ! ” 

German prisoners to work on the farms were the 
answer to a problem serious enough. 

But this answer brought other complications, as I 
will tell you. 

* ***** * 

Of those German prisoners, four were to be em- 
ployed upon Mr. Price’s farm. 

One of the four was the man I had noticed as not 
wearing the red-banded military cap, but a sailor’s, 
having the name of a German man-o’-war on the rib- 
bon. All four, who came from the prison camp out- 
side “ the town,” were to be brought every morning 
to work, and taken away every evening by the dray 
that came to pick them up after it had called for their 
comrades, who had been taken to work upon another 
farm about a couple of miles away. 

Sybil’s employers had also taken one of them, and 
some other people near had asked for one. 

Shortly a new topic of conversation in the neigh- 
bourhood was supplied by 66 our German prisoners.” 

“ Good workers they are, that nobody can deny,” 
was Mrs. Price’s verdict. 

Unanimous was the chorus of praise for the way 
those fellows went at it, and the amount they’d get 


308 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


done in a day; a lot more than our own chaps, by 
George! (said some), and how quiet they were, and 
conscientious, and well-behaved! No trouble did they 
give; none whatsoever! 

“ A Godsend to the farmers, they’re going to be,” 
pronounced Mr. Price at the dinner hour one day 
when the corn was still in cutting. The noise of the 
motor-tractors filled the country as if with the hum 
of a hundred giant locusts, while the sheaves fell in lines 
behind the cutter-and-binder. In one field the Germans 
were setting up the sheaves in fives. 

“ What we should do without those boys presently 
I don’t know,” declared Mr. Price from his end of 
the table. “ I’m sure we ought all to be very grate- 
ful to them ! ” 

“What? To them dirty Huns?” This exclama- 
tion hurst from Yic as she sat heartily devouring suet- 
pudding at my side. “ Grateful to them, Mr. Price? ” 

Indignation flushed the handsome, sunburnt, Cock- 
ney face that she turned upon our employer. 

Mildly his blue eyes met her scandalized dark ones. 

“Why not, Vic? ” he asked. 

“ Why ! I should think it’s they who ought to be 
jolly well grateful to us,” retorted Vic warmly, “ for 
allowing ’em to be alive at all, once we got hold of 
’em. After all they done! 

“ Huh ! ” she continued. “ Why I can’t pass the 
gang of ’em working in the fields there without think- 
ing, ‘ Yes ! There you are, my lads ! It’s cost us 
Lord knows how many of the best to take you, and 


“ OUR 55 GERMANS 


309 


there you are alive and jolly in the nice fresh air, 
working just as you’ve a mind to, having everybody as 
decent as pie to you. It’s a woman they ought to have 
as Commandant, not a soft-hearted man ! ” 

The gentle giant continued to look mildly across 
the table at this indignant one. I could see that he 
could not understand her outburst on this subject. 
Those four men in his field there — they were Huns, 
yes, but captured Huns. Fighting no longer against 
us. Working for us. No longer enemies of ours. 
They were helpless and in our hands, and we could 
not be hard upon them! This was how it appeared 
to him. And his whole, kindly, home-worshipping 
Welsh heart spoke in his simple answer to Vic’s tirade. 

66 Poor boys,” he said. “ Far from their homes ! ” 

I spoke up here. 66 Plenty of our own boys are 
as far from theirs.” 

“ Yes,” put in Elizabeth. “ And are they being 
treated by the Germans one-half as decently as these 
are being treated by us, do you suppose?” 

“ Not likely! ” with much feeling, from Vic. I knew 
she’d had a special “ boy ” who had been a prisoner 
in Wittenberg during that relentless first winter of 
the war. He had died of it, Vic’s young corporal of 
the London Regiment. 

Other women seem to have forgiven the enemy those 
horrors of deliberate starvation, cold, dirt, and dis- 
ease, which destroyed their sons or sweethearts, but 
not Vic Jelks, the Cockney Land Girl, whose motto is 
“ keep smiling ” above the sorrow which was too proud 


310 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


to wear any black. Vic is one of England’s woman- 
folk who do not forget. 

“ Indeed some of these Germans seem quite as decent 
as our own men,” Mr. Price urged. “ Why, the other 
day when I was away selling that horse, I was hearing 
about some old farmer in Merionethshire who has a 
German prisoner Jiving in and working. Now the 
farmer’s only son is a prisoner of war in Germany 
working on a farm. 

“ Talking to the German one day about where his 
home was, what do you think the farmer found out? 
Why, that it was the father of his German that had 
got his (the farmer’s) son working for him! And 
what was the end of it? The German prisoner wrote 
home to his people. ‘ Be kind to your Welshman, for 
these people here will do anything for me.’ So you 
see, Miss Vic ! ” 

But Vic would not let him have the last word. 

“Did you say Merionethshire, Mr. Price? Wasn’t 
it somewhere there that a big potato crop failed, be- 
cause the potatoes were put in by Germans? The 
blighters had cut all the eyes out of ’em so that they 
shouldn’t sprout. How’s that, eh? That’s the way 
they’ll do you in, after all their jaw about ‘ kindness 9 
and the lot. That’s the dirty trick they play you — 
if you’ll excuse my language, Mrs. Price ! ” 

The farmer’s wife, with her usual briskness, had 
risen and had fetched two large bottles of milk, a 
farmhouse loaf and a basin full of the butter that 
I’d made yesterday. 


“ OUR ” GERMANS 


311 


“Now here’s the lunch for these much-discussed 
prisoners,” Mrs. Price announced. “ You needn’t 
look as if you thought I were trading with the enemy, 
any of you girls, because I’m not. I’m sending the 
men out something to eat because I know it makes 
them work better if they’re fed right. 

“ I’m not asking you girls to look at them, or speak 
to them, or take them their food ” — here she tucked 
the lot into a big string bag used for carrying vege- 
tables — “ in fact, I wouldn’t allow it. Mr. Price will 
do all that. Won’t you, John? Here you are, dear.” 

She handed him the bag of provisions and whisked 
away like a busy little bird. 

Mr. Price took the bag and set off across the farm- 
yard and out of the red-painted gate where Dick 
Holiday had once lingered to talk to me. 

I walked beside the farmer now, for Mrs. Price 
had told me to bring in a cow and her calf, which 
were to be found in the meadow beyond that cornfield 
where the four Germans worked. Crossing the road 
we encountered a charming figure in summery attire, 
carrying a big green sunshade. Muriel Elvey! 

She nodded patronizingly to me. Upon Mr. Price 
she smiled as sweetly as she did upon all men. Curious 
girl ! 

“ What have you got there ? ” Muriel asked, tilting 
the sunshade to one side and pointing a white-gloved 
finger at the bag that the tall farmer was dangling. 
“ Bread and milk? What, to feed the German prison- 
ers? What fun! May I come and watch them feed- 


312 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


in g, Mr. Price? Like the animals at the Zoo sort of 
thing. Do let me; I’m so bored now my cousin is 
away. Nobody to talk to. You can’t count Colonel 
Fielding exactly ; he is such a milksop ! ” declared the 
girl whom Colonel Fielding had so ruthlessly analysed ; 
she was obviously conscious of his opinion. “ That is, 
I only like big men to talk to, that I can look up to ! ” 
with an upward glance. “ .Where are these Germans ? 
Ah, there ! ” 

For we had come into the cornfield now, where the 
captive Huns were taking their noontide rest. In a 
patch of shadow cast by the trees at the end of the 
field they stretched themselves at ease. One was lying 
face downwards, his shirt-sleeved elbows in the corn- 
stubble, and reading a letter. One sat leaning against 
the trunk of the tree, arms folded, cap over his eyes, 
his ruddy, uncharacteristically dark face turned to- 
wards us as we came up. 

“ He’s quite good-looking for a Boche,” pronounced 
Muriel Elvey, with a critical glance, as though this 
were some exhibition of strange animals — which, to 
be sure, it was. 66 But then, of course, some of them 
that I used to dance with over there were handsome — 
the officers, at all events. These are all ordinary sol- 
diers, of course, aren’t they? One’s a sailor, I see. 
How amusing! Wbat were they all before the war, 
Mr. Price? Do you know? ” 

“ I can’t tell you, Miss Elvey,” the gentle giant 
answered this pretty chatterer. “ I’d like to know 
myself what that dark one is — a farmer himself, I’m 


“OUR” GERMANS 


813 


sure, bj the way he goes about his work. But not 
one of these understands a word of English, and there’s 
none of us on the farm that knows any German.” 

Now here my employer was mistaken. I knew Ger- 
man pretty well. 

For two years after my people left the old home 
in Wales I had been sent to the same finishing school 
in Berlin as Muriel Elvey. That was five or six years 
ago now. But I remembered, I believed I could have 
spoken to these men in their own tongue. 

Only — no, I couldn’t have spoken to them. I 
should have hated to think of their being badly treated, 
these Germans ; starved or tortured as they tortured 
and starved our British soldiers when wounded and 
helpless in their hands. That would have made me 
unhappy, not so much for them as for ourselves to 
think that we Britons could sink to such acts. 

Personally, I didn’t want to show any kindness to 
these men. Let them, now they were deprived of the 
power to do any more mischief, be of as much use as 
they could. 

I didn’t want to question them or look at them 
either out of good-nature or curiosity. A sudden 
hard coldness fell upon me as I saw that big fellow 
in the sailor’s cap. 

A German sailor! What does that say? I had 
had one brother at sea, mine-sweeping — Jack — who 
used to sing: 

“ I’ll sail with the scum of the lowest towns. 

But not with such the Likes o’ They ! ” 


314 * 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


He had been shot as he put off in an open boat 
from his wrecked ship. 

No, I didn’t want to speak German. I didn’t want 
any German to get a word from the lips of an English 
girl. 

But Muriel Elvey cried with a laugh: 

“ Oh, call them up. What fun ! I’ll speak to 
them!” 

Mr. Price beckoned to the group of Huns. 

They rose. Two of them, the sailor and the dark 
soldier whom Muriel had pronounced “ quite good- 
looking for a Boche,” made as if to come nearer. 

“ Now, Mr. Price ! Let me give them their ra- 
tions ! ” Muriel begged prettily. She put aside her 
sunshade, took the bag of provisions from the farmer’s 
hand, and stepped forward. 

The eyes of all four Germans were fastened eagerly 
upon her; she was without a doubt the most alluring 
sight that had met their gaze since last it had fallen 
on a good, pre-war, “ echt-Deutsch ” meal of veal and 
sour cabbage with damson sauce. 

In fact, they looked at her rather as if she were 
something to eat, this dainty English girl, “ fresh as 
milk and blood,” as their own idiom has it, with her 
summery hat shading her big eyes, and her frock one 
of the usual bouquets of delaine she wore, in colour 
white and yellow this time, and of a cut that gave 
generous glimpses of the yellow gossamer silk stock- 
ings above her suede shoes. 

It was exactly the kind of look with which the Prus- 


“OUR” GERMANS 


615 


sian officers had been wont to ogle the school-procession 
of us as we walked down Unter den Linden in the old 
days on our way to classes. 

I had heard that Germans have only two ways of 
looking at a woman. . . . 

I felt I didn’t like them to look at an English girl 
like that! i 

Muriel seemed to have no such thought as these 
Germans took their food from her hand and drew 
nearer to her, smiling into her face and answering the 
greeting she gave to them in their own tongue. 

“You like working here on the land?” she asked 
them in the careful German that we had acquired in 
our Berliner pension. 

“ Yes, indeed, gracious young lady,” returned the 
rosy-faced, dark-eyed German soldier. “ It is much 
better here in the country. There is never anything 
going on in a town ! ” 

“ Oh ! I do not agree with you ! ” declared Muriel. 
“ I prefer the town myself. The farmer here wants 
to know what you were in civil life ? ” 

The young German answered that he helped his 
father, who had a big farming-estate in the Rhine 
country. This Muriel translated to Mr. Price, who 
replied : 

“ I thought he knew all about the work. He’s a 
nice young fellow, this. Very kind. Very pleasant 
way with him. Look how pleased he is to hear you 
talk to him, Miss Elvey ! I hope he isn’t longing too 
much after his home, the poor fellow ! ” 


316 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


And the Welsh farmer turned his kindliest smile 
upon this son of German farming-folk. 

I am bound to say it was difficult to connect that 
dark-eyed, honest-faced young peasant with the 
atrocities committed over Europe by his kind. He 
spoke and bore himself modestly and decently. Every 
line of his rather heavy, comely countenance pro- 
claimed him a truly harmless soul. 

But it is when such thousands of these harmless 
souls are moulded and driven by those fiends who have 
cankered a once merely decent, sentimental, dreamy 
nation — it is then that the atrocities are made pos- 
sible — the atrocities for which they all alike are pay- 
ing now — too lightly ! 

The other man to whom Muriel spoke in German 
did not even appear harmless to me. 

For the blue eyes of the German sailor, even while 
they smiled ingratiatingly at the pretty visitor, re- 
mained hard, watchful, and crafty. From the first 
instant I mistrusted that man ! 

He spoke with an accent that showed he was of 
a class better educated than his companion. 

“ How excellently the gracious young lady speaks 
German ! She lived, without doubt, for many years in 
my country? ” he said. 

“ I was at school in Berlin for two years,” Muriel 
told him, using as friendly a tone as if she were speak- 
ing to one of our own naval men. “ Berlin was de- 
lightful, I thought, before the war! Charming! As 
long as I live I shall always remember the smell of the 


“OUR” GERMANS 


317 


Berlin 6 Conditoreien ’ — such heavenly confectioners’ 
shops! As you went by, you always got a whiff of 
very good cigars mixed with the smell of boiling-hot 
chocolate ; delicious ! ” 

She went on chattering, as she always did seem 
able to chatter to men, freely and easily. Whether 
they were Huns or South Sea Islanders, as Mrs. Price 
put it, men would be men to Muriel Elvey — that is, 
the atoms which made up the atmosphere of admira- 
tion that was her breath of life ! 

“ Berlin and the Tiergarten and the All-darlingest 
Opera! How I did enjoy them all,” Muriel gushed in 
German. “ I did have a good time ; at the houses of my 
school-fellows where I was invited — everybody was so 
charming and hospitable to me ! ” 

“ That is — yes — very understandable,” put in the 
Hun sailor, with a bolder glance. “ They who would 
not be charming to such a charming young English 
lady must indeed without taste be ! ” 

Muriel, swinging her parasol, smiled graciously 
upon this compliment — from a German ! 

Standing there in that Welsh cornfield, watching 
this little interlude between that captured Hun and 
that pretty English girl, I couldn’t help remembering 
the fate of other pretty girls, in countries less fortu- 
nate than ours, laid waste by these men. 

Rosy girls of Flanders, neat black-haired girls of 
France, have been driven off into slavery and worse 
under the rule of the Germans. 

Germans would have done the same by the girls of 


318 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


Great Britain! Think of it. Had their long-laid 
plans succeeded for the invasion of this coveted coun- 
try of ours, our women — always made much of in 
the old days by Germans ! — our women would have 
been part of “ the loot of cities.” Men like these in 
this very field would have treated Muriel Elvey, me, 
all of us ! no differently from the way in which they 
treated the girls of Lille. England’s women! 

They would never be able to do it now. For that 
we had our fighting men, our unsleeping Fleet, to thank. 

And it seemed to me a kind of disloyalty to those 
defenders of ours that Muriel should smile upon the 
German sailor when he told her in that ingratiating 
tone : “ I regret that our countries are at war.” 

The retort rushed into my mind : “ I hope you’ll 
all be made to regret it a lot worse before the end ! ” 

But I did not speak. 

Muriel said lightly and fluently : 66 1 regret it, too ! 
War becomes such a bore, after so long! Really, I 
do not know what we began fighting for, and I don’t 
think that England wants to go on any more than 
Germany ” 

Here I could not help putting in, indignantly, in 
English : “ Oh ! How can you say these things ! To 
a German ! Oh, Muriel ” 

Before I said more, another voice called her name — 
sharply, too. 

“ Muriel ! ” 

It was the voice of Captain Holiday. 

Standing engrossed in hearing Muriel’s talk with 


“OUR” GERMANS 


319 


the prisoner, we had scarcely noticed the sound that 
had broken into it — the wheels of the light dog-cart 
that had driven up the lane behind the hedge. In the 
dog-cart sat Dick Holiday driving; his friend, Colonel 
Fielding, was beside him. 

He jumped down as Dick Holiday pulled up the 
horse. 

“ Good afternoon, Mr. Price,” said Dick Holiday. 
My heart jumped to see him as he saluted me; his 
brown face, however, had never a smile. 

“ Muriel, get in,” he said, “ I’ll drive you back to 
the Lodge.” 

Colonel Fielding, with a more genial greeting to me, 
held open the field gate for Miss Elvey. 

But Muriel allowed them to wait for her. 

“ Hullo, Cousin Dick,” she called out airily from 
the cornfield. “ What a way you have of popping in 
and out like a harlequin at a pantomime, haven’t you? 
Mother and I thought we weren’t going to see you for 
another whole day. How’s London?” 

“ It still stands where it did,” returned her cousin 
drily. He was evidently in no laughing mood. 
“ Get in by me, Muriel.” 

Muriel strolled through the gate. “ You don’t seem 
to have come back in very gay spirits,” she said. 
Then she turned to wave her little, white-gloved hand 
to the sailor to whom she had been talking. 

I saw Dick Holiday give her a very steady glance. 
She laughed as she stood by the trap waiting before 
she put her foot on the step. 


320 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


“ Don’t look black at me,” she said to him. 66 1 
know you did tell me I wasn’t to speak to the Germans. 
But I told you I would and I have. So there, Master 
Dick!” ( Coquettishly. ) 44 And these are very nice 

Germans, too, as it happens. I’ve had quite a chat 
with that delightful sailor-man with the blue eyes. I’m 
sure he’s nothing to do with the people who do the 
dreadful things. These Germans are different.” 

As he gave her his hand to help her up into the 
trap I heard her cousin say, distinctly and steadily : 

44 I wish you would remember one thing. No Ger- 
mans are 4 different.’ All Germans are the same Ger- 
mans at bottom when you come to it! All Germans 
are — Germans ! ” 

He took up the reins. 

Elizabeth’s Falconer (jumping up behind as lightly 
as any jockey) gave me a smile, an ineffable gesture 
that was to spell 64 Pro-German, eh? She's in for a 
good strafing from old Dick; breakers ahead, cheerio ! ” 

And off they drove. 

Mr. Price and I, leaving the cornfield, went on to 
that meadow where the cow and her calf were that had 
to be brought up to the farm. 

44 Dear me, Captain Holiday was very hard about 
letting Miss Elvey say a word to those boys,” re- 
marked the farmer to me as we walked along. . 44 There 
is no harm in this lot of Germans. No harm, I am 
sure.” 

For the generous-hearted Welshman judges as he 
would be judged himself. Void of guile, he could not 


“OUR” GERMANS 


321 

see guile where it lurked. He was like the best and 
shrewdest of our own soldiers; clean fighters, they 
were incredibly slow to believe what dirty fighters these 
others were. It has taken months and years of bitter 
experience to show Britain that; Britain with her ob- 
stinate dislike to believing anything really bad of the 
nation with whom she fights ! 

Even now she does not believe they are as black as 
they are painted! 

Do we not hear that about us every day, and isn’t 
it the trait that our enemy builds on and takes ad- 
vantage of, to our own sorrow? 

Now Mr. Price, of Holiday’s Farm, Careg, was of 
that lovable and broadminded type that believes the 
best of all men, even Germans ! until the very last mo- 
ment. 

His moment of disillusionment about one particular 
German was at hand. 

As he himself said ruefully about the affair after- 
wards : 

“ Who’d have thought it? I would not have ex- 
pected it of that man ; I would not, indeed ” 

But let me tell you from the beginning what hap- 
pened. 


CHAPTER XXXIV 


HARVEST, NINETEEN-EIGHTEEN 

“She stood breast-high amid the corn 
Clasped by the golden light of morn. 

Like the sweetheart of the sun 
Who many a glowing kiss had won. 

“ In her cheek an autumn flush 
Deeply ripened, such a blush 
In the midst of brown was born 
Like red poppies grown with corn. 

“And her hat with shady brim 
Made her tressy forehead dim; 

Thus she stood amid the stooks, 

Praising God with sweetest looks.” 

— Wordsworth. 


A LL this, you must remember, was in harvest 
time. 

Harvest ! It spread like a golden smile over 
the land on which we had been working all that summer. 
All the country about our farm seemed to be tinted 
in three broad colours — light green of the carried 
hay-fields, dark green of the late summer woods, 
blonde-yellow of the corn. And I wish I could show 
you who read a picture of the biggest cornfield at the 
Prices as it looked on a certain memorable day ! 

This field sloped steeply up to an elm-bordered 

hedge, and in steeply-sloping rows the sheaves were 

322 


HARVEST, NINETEEN -EIGHTEEN 323 


set up in fives ; some still standing to catch every warm- 
ing ray of sun, others laid down flat, ready for the 
forking. This laying down of the sheaves was the 
job given over to Vic, who had been here on the harvest 
last year; to no mere ’prentice-hand would Mr. Price 
allow it, for fear of waste. 

She made rather a wonderful little picture, the Cock- 
ney girl, dark and glowing against the sheaves, laying 
one down after the other, steadily, carefully, now, so 
as not to shake and scatter the grain that was to mean 
England’s bread. The movement of Vic’s brown arm, 
lowering that sheaf, reminded me of the gesture with 
which a woman “ eases ” her baby’s sleeping head down 
on to a pillow. 

“ How sweet Vic would have been with a little child,” 
I thought. “ What a black shame that the man she 
should have married was done to death in that German 
prison camp ! ” 

But Vic nodded gaily at me as I crossed the field, 
drew the sleeve of her smock across her brown fore- 
head and called, “Getting on fine, aren’t we? This 

is the way we’re going to do in those dirty ” Here 

she made a London street-boy’s grimace towards the 
big, red-painted cart that was coming round by the 
barn towards the top of the field, driven by one of 
the German prisoners. 

That long cart, which started at the top of the 
hill, took seven people to work it. An odd seven it 
was, too — a truly 1918 septette of workers! 

Two Germans in the cart, one driving, one settling 


324 * A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 

the sheaves as they came. Two British, the Welsh 
shepherd Ivor, and the English wounded soldier (sub- 
stitute) with forks, loading — a strenuous job! 

Two Land Girls — Elizabeth and myself — follow- 
ing the cart with the long “ heel-ropes ” to catch up 
any loose corn left lying in the stubble. Last, but not 
least, let me mention the seventh worker — a small but 
intelligent-looking schoolboy of fourteen, who was giv- 
ing the last weeks of his holidays from Ellesmere School 
to helping bring the harvest home. This young Briton 
walked at the heads of the two enormous horses, lead- 
ing them, starting them, or calling to them “ Wo- 
beck ! ” in a voice three times as big as himself. 

“Yes! A mixed crew, isn’t it?” I heard Mr. 
Price remark to his wife as the pair of them came to 
have a look at the workers on the carts before they 
passed on to the barn. “ Welsh, English, Germans ! 
All perfectly friendly, too! All of them with just one 
object, to get in this big harvest as quick as it can be 
done. They will ; you needn’t be afraid ! ” 

“ If only that horse doesn’t get his great hoof on 
the little boy’s foot, now,” murmured Mrs. Price, anx- 
iously. “That’s all I’m afraid of!” 

“Wo-beck!” thundered the infant at the horses’ 
heads. 

Again the cart stopped. Up went the sheaves on 
the fork, and into place on the piles of others in the 
cart. Then on again, while Elizabeth and I gathered 
into drifts on our rakes the corn that had been left 


HARVEST, NINETEEN-EIGHTEEN 325 


over. So, slowly down the row we went under the 
hot August sun, and so through the gap into the field 
where the roofed stack stood. 

Two other Germans — one the sailor on whom 
Muriel had smiled — were working on the stack. 
Close by the empty cart was waiting to start at the 
top of another row. We set out behind it again; the 
Welsh schoolboy, who had lingered to try to catch a 
field-mouse that had bolted out of a sheaf, dashed back 
to his post. This time Ivor drove, the wounded soldier 
packed the sheaves, and the Germans took the forks 
and loaded, working with a concentration ! 

And so, the men changing jobs with each journey 
we made, the warm and strenuous morning wore away. 

After the midday meal there was another change; 
Ivor the shepherd and the English soldier went off to 
the barn, and their places on the cart were filled by 
Colonel Fielding and Captain Holiday, who turned up 
from the Lodge in flannels. They worked as hard as 
the Germans, who were their companions in toil, and 
as silently. After the first greeting, neither Elizabeth 
nor I had a glance, nor expected one from her -fiance 
or his friend. Fellow-workers we were. Any social 
matters were left out of it as long as we were on the 
job together. 

And yet Even while my eyes were fixed upon 

my rake and upon the stubble whence I meant to take 
in every good ear of corn that I could gather up, my 
foolish heart still sought to feed itself with glimpses 


326 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


of the men who worked so near to me ; “ so near and 
yet so far ! ” as Vic would probably have said with her 
mock-sentimental glance. 

How could Elizabeth still think that “ all men were 
so ugly ” (all men except her own adored Female Im- 
personator with his eyelashes and his girlish mouth) ? 
How could she not appreciate the grace of that other 
man’s light, yet masculine, build in action? 

Farm-work did suit Dick Holiday, whom I pre- 
ferred to call in my heart Richard Wynn. Seeming 
never to look at him, I yet saw and delighted in every 
movement of his. What a wonderful gesture it was 
of his when he pitched the heavy sheaf on to the 
stacked-up cart, high above his head! I loved him; 
the play of his muscles, the rim of white that just 
showed past the sunburn mark on his neck, the easy 
set of his brown head upon his shoulders, to which his 
shirt now clung! More, I loved the clean, frank mind 
that I could sense beyond the lithe, u out-of-doorish ” 
body; I loved his joy in the country, his pluck as a 
soldier, his simplicity. I liked him for being such 
chums with that other, much more complex and arti- 
ficial young man of Elizabeth’s. I liked his honest in- 
dignation over his lady-love’s talking to the Germans. 
I liked everything I’d ever heard him say, everything 
I’d ever seen him do. In fact, for me he could do noth- 
ing wrong ; nothing ! 

What a friend . . . what a sweetheart . . . what 
everything that was attractive and sweet and sound at 
the core . . . 


HARVEST, NINETEEN -EIGHTEEN 327 


And none of it was for me. 

That could not alter the doom that I was his, as 
completely as was the golden-and-white collie that lay 
there in the field guarding his coat beside the hedge, 
her nose between her paws and her eyes of love upon 
her master. 

Fate was settled for me. Life without him meant 
life without love and marriage — in these things I did 
not wish for any second-best. But he himself had 
shown me other things in life. 

The land ! I would stay on the land that had healed 
me and made a woman of me. It should remain my 
interest and my delight to make a proper landswoman 
of myself. The land should be my sweetheart when 
Dick (who might have been mine) was married to an- 
other girl. 

Held up, as it were, by this thought, I worked on 
steadily through the afternoon. 

At the break for tea I was so thirsty that I made my 
way to the little drinking-fountain in the well behind 
the barn. Into a mossy stone bowl there fell a thread 
of spring-water cold as ice and clear as diamonds. 
A bright tin cup was always placed on a slab amidst 
the ferns of the well. 

But when I reached the place I found the German 
sailor, who had been at the barn, with that cup to his 
lips. With a little flourish of politeness he put it 
down, filled it again, rinsed it out, handed it to me. 

“ No, thank you,” I said. 

I turned and went back to the harvest-field. 


328 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


Afterwards I was glad to think that I would not 
drink after that German, not even from the crystal 
Welsh spring. I was glad that I had not had a 
glance for that man who, treated with every kindness 
by a too-confiding Briton, was at that moment plan- 
ning to do his worst by his benefactor. 

That evening, when Elizabeth and I got into camp, 
walking rather slowly after an arduous day, we found 
the news there before us. 

It had been brought in by little Peggy, the timber 
girl. On the road down from the woods, where they 
were working, the timber gang had been passed by Mr. 
Price’s wagoner’s boy, who was scorching into “ the 
town ” by the shortest way, and as fast as an out-of- 
date old bicycle could take him. 

“ Heard the news ? ” he had shrieked out to the 
gang. “ Fire at Mr. Price’s farm ! ” 

Immediately the songs of the timber girls (who al- 
ways, on their return from work, made the welkin ring 
with selections from Revue) had stopped upon a stac- 
cato note. 

“ Fire P ” they’d all shrilled together. “ Is it a bad 
one ? ” 

“ Yes, I think ! ” the wagoner’s son had retorted 
with that enthusiastic glee over ill-tidings which marks 
the small boy. " All the barns is in a blaaaze ! Burn 
up the harvest it will ! ” 

He had whooped and sped on. 

This was the story Peggy brought back. Horrified 
beyond words, Elizabeth and I stared at one another. 


HARVEST, NINETEEN-EIGHTEEN 329 


It must have happened only just after we had left 
off work! But what had happened? 

“ Let’s go and see. We must go back and see!” 
I exclaimed to my chum. “ Perhaps we shall be able 
to help. Anyhow, let’s get back to the farm at once ! 
Come along, quick ! ” 

Together Elizabeth and I bolted like rabbits out 
of the porch of the hut, leaving a chattering group 
of girls to look after us. Two or three of them broke 
away to join us. Peggy, with a large hunk of bread 
and rhubarb jam in her hand, overtook us first. 

“Now I bet you it’s those Boches ! ” she cried as she 
came up. “ Setting fire to the corn they’ve just got 
in ! Well, I s’pose nobody can be astonished at them ? 
Come on, girls, let’s see what it is they have done — 
come on! A t the double ” 

With a clatter of Land boots on the hard road we 
took to our heels together and ran ! 


CHAPTER XXXV 


44 FIRE, FIRE ! ” 

“ An enemy hath done this.” 

— Parable of the Tares. 

W E ran, taking a short cut to the farm over 
the stubble of the cornfield which had been 
reaped that afternoon. 

As we ran I kept saying to myself : 44 The big barn ! 
Can it be the big barn that’s on fire? ” 

For that would have meant nearly all the wheat 
of this whole big field destroyed and done for. 

We ran, passing the gate beside which lay the dumpy 
little gleaners’ sheaves of every ear that the children 
had found after our heel-rakes had combed out the 
field. Oh! would that represent all that was left of 
this afternoon’s harvesting? 

The wind in our faces brought us a drift of smoke, 
a smell of wood burning, the sound of shouting. 

44 Beat that down ! ” called Dick Holiday’s voice. 
44 Never mind about that other. Leave that shed! 
It’s done.” 

We came up, panting, to find the dear, familiar 
farmyard in a pandemonium such as it had never 
known before. It was full of people, and the sound 
of their feet and voices mingling with that deep, omi- 
nous roar of the fire. 


330 


“ FIRE, FIRE ! ” 


SSI 


Something was fiercely ablaze. Was — oh ! was 
it? No, thank heaven, it was not the big barn after 
all! 

A harvest so good had overflowed the great tithe- 
barn for which I had feared. Part of today’s wheat 
had been stacked into a smaller shed, but a few feet 
off from the great barn. It was this shed that blazed 
and blazed, sending up clouds of blue-grey smoke, 
fountains of sparks, and that smell which was some- 
thing between that of an autumn bonfire and of malt 
and bread. 

Yes, it was England’s bread that was being de- 
stroyed there before our eyes. But only a part of 
that afternoon’s harvesting of it. For the other part 
a fight was being put up ; the big barn, perilously near, 
must not be allowed to catch. 

People had formed themselves into a chain to hand 
down buckets full of water from the canal that 
meandered by at the top-end of the farmyard to where 
the fire went flashing up, licking up even to the 
branches of the elms. Dick Holiday in his shirt- 
sleeves, close to the taller figure of Mr. Price, was 
dashing water, bucket after bucket of it, not on to 
the flames at all, but on to the walls and woodwork of 
the great barn. 

“ Sand,” I heard him call. “ Sand in that pit over 
there. Mix it with the water ! ” 

I scarcely know how it was that I found myself 
with one of my best milking-pails full of wet sand, 
racing down the yard beside Colonel Fielding. All to- 


332 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


gether we were working presently, as we had worked 
before in the field. Even as I toiled strenuously with 
my pails I noticed such odd little details in the midst 
of the turmoil; I noticed the way Ivor and Colonel 
Fielding turned their faces, as they threw the water, 
away from the burning walls of the shed, now hot as 
a furnace; I noticed Mrs. Price’s little flying feet un- 
der her grey overall; I noticed the frightened twitter 
of the birds who had been scared out of their usual 
roosting places in the hedge near by, and the angry 
calling of the rooks whose nests were in those elms. And 
on Dick Holiday’s forehead, under a hank of his short, 
brown hair, I even noticed a great smudge of black 
from the charred wood. 

I was standing near enough to him to see this when 
he, who had been looking up at the roof of the shed, 
grasped my arm and pulled me back a step suddenly. 
I thought he had not noticed who it was. But he 
exclaimed, “Joan, look out! It’s going to fall in 
now.” 

And at the word the roof of that shed collapsed. 
It fell in like a house of 'cards, or like (alas!) one 
of the many French homes of which black ruin marks 
the trace. Up went a great spurt of flames, crack- 
ling and roaring to the skies again. 

Captain Holiday loosed my arm. “ The wind’s 
shifted,” he said, in relief, watching the direction of 
those flames. Then, raising his voice, he added : * I 

say, Mr. Price, the wind’s turned again. That’ll be 
all right now, I think.” 


“ FIRE, FIRE ! ” 


333 


“ All right, Captain Holiday ; thank goodness,” 
came from the farmer, turning his heated, school-boy’s 
face with a look of relief also. “ The fire will blow 
right away from the barn now. Quite safe now. Ah! 
I didn’t think we should stop it. I thought it was 

done for, indeed ! Leave it now, we can ” 

For the flames, full fed, seemed to be sinking as 
suddenly as they had leapt. 

The labourers, land girls, a detachment of wounded 
boys from the Hospital, and villagers drew back ; faces 
were mopped, sleeves rolled down again, hands placed 
on hips, and deep ejaculations breathed out in Welsh 
and English. 

“Well, oh!” . . . “I never saw such a thing.” 
“ Saved more than three-quarters of the corn, what- 
ever! ... In where did that fire start, Mr. Price?” 

Then, quickly, a brusque voice rapped out curtly, 
“ What the deuce is this ? Mr. Price ! Come here, 

will you ? Look at this ” 

“ This ” was something that Captain Holiday 
seemed to have found just within the opening to the 
big barn to which he had turned. A group of us pressed 
nearer to look. 

“ A very neatly arranged packet of shavings, by 
Jove!” came from Dick Holiday, on his knees. He 
sniffed. “ Smelling of paraffin. . . . And here’s an- 
other of ’em, and another! . . . Mr. Price, where is 
the paraffin kept on this place? ” 

“ I’ll show you, Captain Holiday,” said the farmer, 
perturbed. 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


334 

He turned towards the house, followed by the two 
young officers from the Lodge, with the rest of us 
bringing up a straggling procession in the rear. 

At the back-door of the farm Mrs. Price had al- 
ready joined the one onlooker of this scene who had not 
ventured down into the yard — an elegant onlooker, 
in a semi-evening toilette of mauve georgette, half-hid- 
den beneath a creamy wrap. 

Muriel, excited and amused, hardly seemed to realize 
the gravity of what she had been watching. 

44 Oh, Dick, have you got the fire out, nearly ? ” 
she chattered. 44 1 should have come down to see you 
all near to, only I didn’t want to ruin these shoes. 
I’d just dashed out as I was! Thrilling, isn’t it? 
What is this about paraffin? ” she added, quickly. 
46 Did they say you found paraffin thrown about? Oh! 
I wonder ” — more excitedly — 64 1 wonder if it was 
that man I saw with the can? ” 

Sharply her cousin rapped out, 44 What man?” 

44 That nice-looking sailor with the blue eyes who 
said I spoke German so well ” 

Dick Holiday gave a very quick movement. 44 The 
German? You saw him with a can of paraffin? 
What’s this, Muriel? When?” 

44 Today — at lunch-time, I think it was,” returned 
Muriel, while we all listened eagerly. 44 I was coming 
back from taking a letter to the post-box, and I met 
that German I was talking to the other day, close to 
the little well in the field ” 


44 Yes? ” 


“ FIRE, FIRE ! * 


335 


“ Well, that’s all; he just had a tin of paraffin show- 
ing out of his jacket pocket, and I asked him, in Ger- 
man, what he was going to do with it.” 

“ What did he say ? ” asked Dick Holiday, more 
than curtly. 

“ Fie said he was going to put a little paraffin in 
the ditches to destroy the mosquitoes’ nests there are 
hereabouts,” explained Muriel. “ He said the farmer 
had ordered him to do it.” 

“ Did you give him that order, Mr. Price?” 

“ Never in my life ! ” returned the farmer. 

“ Do they know where your paraffin barrel is in 
that shed? Would they be able to get to it; should 
you notice them if they were round about it, Mrs. 
Price? Have you noticed any of thehi there? ” 

“ Really, Captain Holiday, I couldn’t say,” re- 
turned the farmer’s w T ife, with concern. “ I’ve got so 
used to them, I haven’t thought very much about 
them ” 

“ Ah ! the fault of all of us ! ” declared Dick Holi- 
day, with a sternness I had not before heard in his 
voice. “ There’s very little doubt in my mind what 
to think about them now! ” He turned to the farmer 
again. “ Don’t let any of your men touch those heaps 
of shavings, Mr. Price, please. Leave everything just 
as it is, will you? The evidence will have to be looked 
to. No telephone on the farm, have you? I shall 
have to send over to the camp, then. I say, Field- 
ing -” 

Elizabeth’s “ Falconer,” his golden hair rumpled and 


336 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


his delicate face very flushed turned, from where he 
was having a murmured talk with the Man-hater. 

“ Sorry to trouble you, but I’d like you to drive 
over in the dog-cart to the prison camp,” said Dick 
Holiday. “ I’ll stay here till the commandant comes. 
My compliments to him (he’s a Major Russell), and I’d 
be obliged if he’d let you bring him back here at once.” 

“ Right,” said Colonel Fielding, and was off. 

In a worried murmur Mr. Price was saying: “ Well, 
indeed, I wouldn’t have believed it of our Germans ! 
That sailor, you can’t deny that he seemed a pleasant 
young fellow ! ” 

“ Can’t deny the paraffin-smell on his jacket, if it 
was he,” retorted Dick Holiday, with a resigned shrug 
of his flannelled shoulders. Then he turned to Muriel. 
I suppose it wasn’t in masculine human nature to re- 
sist saying what he did to her. 

“ Perhaps you’ll believe me now when I say a Ger- 
man is — always a German? You see why I told you 
you weren’t to speak to ’em ? ” 

A sudden change came over Muriel’s face. I suppose 
there isn’t a girl alive who likes being shown, before a 
little crowd of people, that she is in the wrong. Muriel, 
I remembered from our Berlin days, hated it more than 
most people. By chance I caught her eye as her cousin 
spoke. 

That tiny thing seemed like a lighted match in corn 
stalks as dry as those which had just been blazing. 

For now Muriel blazed up. Temper flashed from 
the big eyes she turned upon her cousin. 


“ FIRE, FIRE ! ” 


337 


66 1 don’t think I’m letting you ‘ tell ’ me what I am 
or am not to do, Dick, thank you,” she informed him 
with a high-pitched little laugh. “ I don’t take that, 
even from ” 

Here she looked straight at me for a change. 

“ I don’t take orders, even from the man I am 
going to marry. And, by the way, I don’t think you 
have heard the news yet. I am engaged to be married, 
you know.” 

She paused for a moment, lifted her neat little head, 
still looking hard at me. In her pretty eyes I saw, 
with surprise, the expression of the woman who wants 
to scratch somebody ; wants to hurt . 

She announced, “ I am writing today to promise to 
marry Captain Markham ! ” 


CHAPTER XXXVI 


THE HARVEST-MOON 


“Oh, moon of my delight!” 


— Omar Khayyam. 



BOUT Muriel’s piece of news a good deal was 
said, later on, by Colonel Fielding. 


He declared that Miss Muriel, who had 
played all she knew to marry the Holiday property, 
now saw that the game was absolutely up, and that she 
had better fall back at once upon the other . . . er 
. . . source of comfort and luxury. He, Colonel Field- 
ing, vowed that her intention to write to 66 that unfor- 
tunate blighter, Markham,” was born then and there 
on the steps of the farmhouse as her cousin strafed her. 
He also told Elizabeth that Miss Muriel’s last hope 
was to irritate Miss Matthews, whom she had always 
suspected of a tendresse for young Markham. 

To all this the Man-hater replied that if the “ Fal- 
coner ” made any more of his catty remarks about the 
future Mrs. Markham, it would merely show him up 
as a disappointed admirer of hers. I believe they 
“ chipped ” each other happily for hours about this. 

But to return to the actual moment of Muriel’s 
staggering announcement. 

She looked round for its effect. Certainly she got 
it. 

All eyes gazed upon the pretty creature standing 


338 


THE HARVEST-MOON 


there. Engaged ! Another engagement in the place ! 
This excitement eclipsed all thought of the fire, the 
incendiary Germans, the commandant (who couldn’t 
come, by the way, until next day). For an instant 
we stared; and Muriel’s cousin seemed the most dum- 
founded. 

But he pulled himself together the first. Holding 
out his hand, he exclaimed heartily : “ Good ! The best 
of luck, my child ! ” He wrung her small fingers, 
beaming all over his face. 

Then I heard myself exclaim: “ Oh, Muriel! You 
really are going to marry Harry? I am so glad; so 
glad!” 

(Which I certainly was !) 

Elizabeth and the others added congratulations. 
Vic declared there never was such a spot for 44 getting 
off ” as here ! Mr. Price beamed as benignantly as if 
Muriel were a favourite sister, and little Mrs. Price, 
all smiles, insisted on our drinking Miss Elvey’s health 
in her own elderberry wine, in the dining-room. 

“ Come in, all of you ! ” she urged hospitably. 
“ Come, Captain Holiday ” 

But Captain Holiday stood still, smiling. 

“ Mrs. Price, Pll join you in one second, but Mr. 
Price has got his coat, and I really can’t come in 
like this in shirt-sleeves. I must get a coat; I’ve lost 
mine.” 

“ Lost it? ” exclaimed the farmer. “ Dear me, where 
did you do that, Captain Holiday? ” 

Captain Holiday answered promptly and serenely. 


640 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


66 Miss Matthews thinks she passed a coat in the har- 
vest field as she was coming along” (and there was a 
“ Dare-to-contradict-me ” gleam in the eyes he turned 
to me). “ You might just come along with me, Joan, 
and show me where you saw it? ” 

Gasping over this bit of obvious improvisation, I 
found it had succeeded. 

Muriel and the others had disappeared into the 
house, and the shirt-sleeved Captain Holiday was pilot- 
ing me gently but firmly across the now-deserted farm- 
yard. 

“ Captain Holiday,” I protested, “ I never said I 
saw a coat ” 

He interrupted serenely. “ Of course I rapped out 
just any excuse to get you to myself at once. I’ve 
things to say to you. But you know that, Joan.” 

Yes . . . Already I guessed (and with what sudden 
rapture !) what was coming. Not always do misunder- 
standings “ keep up ” until the uttermost word is said. 

For long enough I had misunderstood. But now 

I knew, from the tone in which he wished Muriel joy, 
that she never could have been “ the ” girl. That had 
not been cordiality “ put on.” He had been as gen- 
uinely glad as I was to hear of the girl’s engagement ! 

And I knew what was coming next; with quiet but 
growing delight I expected it, yet did not wish one 
word of explanation to be hurried. 

He began, in his direct way : “ What do you think 
of this news about my cousin and Captain Markham? 
Are you surprised? ” 


THE HARVEST-MOON 


34?1 


“ I didn’t know whether she meant to accept him. 
But I knew he was desperate about her ! He told 
me so himself, that Sunday we all went to tea with 
those people.” 

Here Dick Holiday gave me a quick, searching 
glance. We were going through the gate of the har- 
vest-field as he took up “ That Sunday ! Yes ! D’you 
mind my asking you? Markham was telling you 
about all that, in the garden? ” 

“ Yes.” 

Dick Holiday said simply, “ I thought he was mak- 
ing love to you.” 

“ Ah ! ” A light had broken upon me. Just as 
keenly and as mistakenly as I had been jealous of 
Muriel, this man at my side had been jealous of Harry. 
So he had gone away, avoided me these last weeks ! 

He said : “ Markham is a great pal of yours, is 
he?” 

“ Yes,” I agreed. 

“Nothing more?” 

I said : “ I think you guessed that he was the man 
I cared about once.” 

“ Once ? ” he repeated eagerly. “ Why not now ? ” 
He knew as well as I did! Sure of it, I laughed 
softly as I glanced about the cleared field. I said, 
“ I don’t see that coat of yours anywhere about.” 

“ Must be in the next field,” he returned, coolly. 
We walked on, over the stubble and through a gap in 
the hedge to where the sheaves still stood in their pyra- 
mids of five. 


342 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


Then pausing again, he added. 44 What about my 
question, though? ” 

My heart was beating very quickly under that well- 
worn smock of mine, but I managed to say, 44 Which 
question was that? You always ask so many, Cap- 
tain Holiday.” 

44 I’ve told you so often not to call me that,” he 
retorted. He paused, standing tall and dark and 
graceful between the mauve evening sky and the russet 
stooks. 44 My name,” he began — and I expected to 
hear the familiar protest — 44 my name is Dick, you 
know.” But he ended with an announcement which I 
suppose was meant to take away my breath. 

44 My name was Richard Wynn.” 

I could trump that, I thought 1 

Looking up at him, I said, 44 1 knew.” But this 
he trumped instead by saying calmly : 44 1 wondered 
how soon you would! Extraordinary that you didn’t 
tumble to it before, Joan, when everybody here knew 
I’d only taken my uncle’s name. The Prices, Muriel, 
any of the farm people could have told you. Or Field- 
ing — I suppose, by the way, he did tell you? Yes? 
So now you know I did write to you, in the spring — 
letter you threw away, eh? What have you to say 
about it? ” 

He took a step nearer to me. I stood my ground, 
and retorted, 44 Richard Wynn, why did you write 
that letter, to begin with? ” 

44 Difficult to explain,” he said simply, pulling an 
ear of corn from the stook nearest to him and nibbling 


THE HARVEST-MOON 


343 


at it as if absently with his strong teeth. 44 Diffi- 
cult . . . Well! It was when I was feeling pretty rocky 
and 6 down * ” 

44 Ah ! Elizabeth always said it was the effect of 
shell-shock ! 99 

“Did she?” He laughed, nibbling that ear. “It 
wasn’t altogether, either. I was in hospital, badly 
hipped. Some of the fellows there were engaged; nice 
girls coming to visit them, bringing them roses. 
They’d something to look forward to every afternoon. 
Bucked to the nines. 4 My girl ’ — 4 my girl says this ’ 
— 4 my girl and I are doing a show today ’ — 4 my girl’s 
brought me so-and-so ’ — £ my fiancee and her governor 

took me so-and-so ’ That sort of thing the whole 

time. Here was I ” — he threw away the stripped 
stalk — 44 back in Blighty and scarcely a soul interested 
whether I lived or died. Not a woman in my life at all, 
Joan. . . . All this sounds awful piffle, perhaps, but 
that’s not a funny thought for any fellow when he’s 
down ; not a woman to care ” 

His brusque voice sounded boyishly shy. It tore at 
my heartstrings ; but I only said the first thing that 
came into my head. 

44 What about the Elveys? What about your aunt 
and Muriel? They must have known you were in Eng- 
land, wounded.” 

“Er He paused. 44 Yes, Yes, I suppose 

they did. But they only wrote much later on, just 
before I came down here . . . Well, then I got to bar- 
racks, Millshott. It was still there ... I mean that 


344 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


feeling of being fed because I’d no one to care. One 
night ” 

He stopped. 44 Ah ! Have I got to report all these 
details? ” 

44 Please. Yes. You must.” 

44 One night I saw a fellow in the card-room, writing. 
You could tell by his face it wasn’t any business-letter. 
I felt 4 Gad,’ if I’d a girl to write to of my own ! ’ ” 

44 1 should have thought ” I hesitated. 44 1 

shouldn’t have thought it was possible . . . for you 
. . . not to have had one . . .” 

44 Ah! Now what d’you mean by that? ” 

44 Go on. After you thought 4 Gad, if I’d a girl to 
write to ’ ? ” 

44 Well, then, sort of desperately, I fished out an old 
letter-case of mine that I hadn’t touched,” he told me, 
44 for years. I found — what d’you think? — a bow of 
blue ribbon. Blest if I hadn’t forgotten what it was, at 
first ” 

44 Flattering of you ” 

— 44 but I soon remembered, Joan! I’d sneaked it 
off your plait. D’you remember? ” 

44 Go on, please.” 

44 Well, I began remembering the old days at Mr. 
Matthews’s farm. . . . The veranda with all our sticks 
and fishing-boots ! The wood-fires. The icicles round 
the back-kitchen door; you remember? That fox- 
terrier pup I gave you — he’s dead, I expect? And how 
I used to go out after the beagles with your brothers — 
what a regiment of chaps we were! And you just the 


THE HARVEST-MOON 345 

one little girl ... I remembered how I’d looked at 
you ” 

“ Oh, you couldn’t have looked at me ” 

“ Couldn’t I ? I’d often thought 6 There’s a sweet- 
heart, now, some day, for some man.’ I remembered, 
in barracks. Then I thought ‘ She’s grown-up now, 
that kid. Supposing there were a chance of that very 
girl, grown-up, looking at me? 9 So ” 

He stopped, with a smile, as though I must under- 
stand everything now. 

To me an odd thing had happened; just as on that 
day among the chickens on the hillside I was swept 
back for a moment to the Past. I felt memories 
flocking and twittering about me. I remembered him, 
the leggy dark Welsh lad . . . Mr. Wynn, the pupil 
. . . yes . . . yes, this was his familiar voice; this 
was the look and the movement of him, it was all com- 
ing back to me . . . and the time that he’d said 
“ Good-bye ” to me under the dripping veranda. One 
hand clutching his suit-case, the other grasping me 
suddenly by the hair, his boy’s mouth had snatched a 
half-brotherly kiss; the first I’d known from one who 
was not a brother. And now, more than seven years 
later, he came close, put his hand on the nape of my 
neck, just under my twisted-up hair. It thrilled me to 
the heels with happiness. 

“ Wait. Wait,” I whispered, pulling back. “ I 
haven’t heard everything yet.” 

“You have.” 

“ You always did — did contradict me,” I said, 


346 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


standing there under his hand. “ And you only wrote 
to me because there was nobody else — not much of a 
compliment ” 

“ What? Well, no answer came, and I knew I’d been 
an ass. Then came the business about my uncle’s 
property.” He began talking very quickly. “ That 
shoved things right to the back of my mind, Dear r . . 
why d’you shiver? Are you cold? ” 

“ No.” 

“No?” He put his other brown hand about my 
neck. “ Shoved things out of my mind until I came 
right up against you, Joan. You! ” 

“ At the Camp ” 

“ No fear! Hadn’t I spotted you all in your brand- 
new uniform, bless you, on Euston platform that morn- 
ing? That was why I got little Rhys to bring me up to 
the Camp at once, to make sure it was you. You see, 
I’d remembered what you looked like, even if you had 
forgotten me.” 

I thought “Forget him! How, how could I have 
thought of anything but him ” 

“ So that’s all,” he said. “ Only — that wasn’t 
really much of a kiss just before I went to Canada ” 

“ But you haven’t told me about all these weeks 
here, since then ! ” 

“ That’ll keep to make conversation (if we’re short 
of it) after we’re married ! ” he declared abruptly. 
“ You see as we shall get married practically at 
once ” 


THE HARVEST-MOON 347 

“ 6 As we shall ! ’ Are you not going to ask me 
what I have to say in the mat ” 

“ No, because you always complain so of my asking 
questions,” he whispered. He was near enough to 
whisper now, having drawn me close, close to him. 
“ Put your arms round my neck,” he coaxed. “ Kiss 
me.” He put down his brown face. 

“ There’s — Oh, there’s such a smudge of black from 
the wood-smoke on you, Dick ! ” 

“ D’you mind, sweetheart? ” 

Over his shoulder I saw a strip of evening sky deep- 
ening slowly from mauve to violet. The long-drawn, 
quavering cry of an owl came across to us on the fresh- 
ening air. And from behind a black fringe of elms there 
peeped out (fit witness to a Land-Girl’s betrothal!) the 
big round primrose-colored Harvest-Moon. 

Oh, night of Harvest in that rich Welsh valley! To 
some you meant the end of toil, relief from anxiety, 
triumph; to some the overthrow of darkling schemes. 
To me you were Love’s dream come true; oh, night of 
stars and murmurs and caress, oh not-to-be-forgotten 
night . . . 

I found no words to voice what was in my heart, 
beating so near to his own. 

“ Dick, Dick ! ” I sighed. 

He nestled his face (smudge and all) against mine, 
in a string of kisses that were just a give-and-take of 
the delight that is beyond all words. 


POSTSCRIPT 


THE VICTORY-DANCE 

“ Now joy, Old England, raise ! 

For the tidings of thy might, 

By the festal cities’ blaze 

Whilst the wine-cup shines in light 1 
And yet, amidst that joy and uproar. 
Let us think of them that sleep 
Full many a fathom deep 
By thy wild and rocky steep, 


Elsinore ! ’’ — Campbell. 


IGHTS, lights over London again ! 



After four years of darkness and gloom the 


dear old lights shone down on the streets where 
one could see people’s faces plainly once again — 
and what a crowd of faces, tool The pinky speckle 
of them was like nothing as much as a huge flower-bed 
of that sturdy plant London Pride. And above them 
there had burst into bloom the sudden crop of fluttering 
flags . . . the flags of Victory. Yes, at last after 
these four tense years Victory had set those flags wav- 
ing and those lights blazing and those people cheering 
and shouting and dancing in the streets of London town. 

Were you there? 

Were you one atom in that whirling stream of laugh- 
ing and rejoicing people that surged and circled and 
broke and re-formed again about the steps of the 
Pavilion and the fountain in Piccadilly Circus? Did 


348 


THE VICTORY-DANCE 


349 


you fly before those organized rushes of the Aus- 
tralians through the 7 nelee? did you ride on motor- 
drays driven by R.A.F. cadets who had adorned them- 
selves with nurses’ bonnets and cloaks? did you laugh 
helplessly over the antics of those young and uplifted 
Naval officers who, correctly uniformed but for their 
smashed-in bowler hats, were pressing coin and tobacco 
and vows of eternal friendship upon their taxi-driver 
while the surrounding group applauded wildly? 
School-boyish — yes, the Forces were a crowd of school- 
boys let loose that night, and hadn’t they deserved it, 
the right to make holiday and to rejoice in England’s 
way, which is behind a laughing mask and a tin trumpet ? 
* * * ^ 

And behind that again; ah, what? 

Not all the cheers and merry nonsense talked could 
drown the undersong of Victory-week. 

Boys who fell to buy that Victory, day after day of 
that four years’ struggle! Boys who sold their bud- 
ding lives, this one working his gun, that one on his 
ship, that other darling in his downward crashing 
’plane! Sons, brothers, lovers, sweet young cousins 
and boy-friends of ours ! All day the thought of these 
had burned with a proud and steady flame at every 
British woman’s heart. All day there had been on our 
lips the names, the familiar home-names, of those who 
would not come home . . . “ If He — if They were 
only here ...” 

Hard to believe that they were not ! Far, far beyond 
that hubbub one seemed to catch echoes of dear ex- 


350 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


ultant voices we shall hear no more with these our 
earthly ears, calling “ cheerio! ... I say! . . . 
Can't you hear? it's us ! So long! " And, beyond the 
thronging faces under the blaze of the street-lamps, 
Memory and Love could raise a cloud of other faces: 
laughing, care-free faces of youths for whom there 
would be no Tomorrow of difficulties and sordid 
struggles and the anti-climax of growing old. 

* * * * * *• * 

“Yes! Thank Heaven that Jack and the rest of 
them will never have lived to that / ” 

“ That ” was a sight of which I got a glimpse as a 
taxi steered its way inch by inch from the dense throng 
about the entrance to the Berkeley. I spoke aloud in 
the crowd where I found myself, arms linked with my 
Dick on one side of me and with Elizabeth’s young hus- 
band on the other. The happy four of us (two men in 
war-worn khaki, two girls in breeches and new smocks) 
had come up to town together on the Wednesday after 
that glorious Monday. 

And the sight which had struck me was that of the 
face over the heavy fur collar of the man who was sit- 
ting in that taxi; bloated and coarse, he carried his 
sixty years as though he had not in all that time known 
one hour of strenuous exercise or of clean joy in the 
open. Over-eating (more disgustful in its effects than 
heavy drinking) was stamped on his face from the bags 
beneath his eyes to his lowest chin. A dead thing he 
seemed to me; dead more truly than any of the lads 
who had flung their happy lives away for the cause 


THE VICTORY-DANCE 


351 


of the world while he and his like 44 lived.” Through 
the square of the window I caught above his shoulder 
a glimpse of a girl’s pretty and pettish profile < . . 

The crowd surged in between us and the taxi before 
I could exclaim “ Muriel ! . . . I say, it was Muriel; 
did you see her ? ” 

My tall young husband turned his head as it towered 
above us. 44 No! Muriel with him? I thought I saw 
old What’s-his-name ; I s’pose he’s taken her out to 
celebrate on his steel-profits ” 

For since Harvest-time Muriel Elvey had been twice 
engaged ; for a month to Harry, an engagement quickly 
broken after she and her mother had been to stay at 
the house of this distant connection, the elderly profiteer 
of whom I had caught that glimpse. She was to marry 
him. Elizabeth and I thought it the most horrible 
thing we had ever heard of. But Dick had only 
shrugged his shoulders and Colonel Fielding had de- 
clared it was an excellent arrangement and that the 
... . . er . . . Mystery -Girl would consider she was 
in for a very good time. 

44 A good time ! ” Oh, misused phrase ! To me it 
has come to represent one image; the memory of a 
fleshy and stubby-fingered male hand resting on a taxi- 
door, holding a fat black cigar and wearing a diamond 
that spat out coloured lights, less sparkling than the 
dewdrops that stud the Welsh bracken at home. 

We were all going home again in a couple of days ; 
the Land was home to us for ever now ; a very little of 
Town would do for all of us these days, and we, fit and 


A LAND-GIRL’S LOVE STORY 


852 

joyous from air and work and elemental interests, had 
a “ good time ” which we never even called such. 

“ Isn’t it odd,” I remarked as we struggled back to- 
wards the Circus again, “ that Harry Markham didn't 
seem to mind about Muriel so much, after all? ” 

“ No,” said Elizabeth’s Colonel, succinctly. “ He 
had a month of her. I bet he’s . . . er . . . jolly 
glad of the change to that topping little Driver-girl he’s 

all over the place with now ” 

“ * Go it, Mother Browne ! ’ ” whooped the youngest 
of the dancing warriors, a Captain with three wound- 
stripes and a cheeky peach face which no German bullet 
would ever now spoil. “ Come on ! ” 

“ Here, what’s this, what’s this ” broke in my 

Dick. “ What are you doing, you people ” 

“ This ” was a new swirl of the whirlpool which had 
sucked us in just at the top of the Hay market. A 
score of young men in khaki and leather kit, British, 
Overseas men and a huge American, were dancing round 
a policeman, good-humored monument of Tolerance. 

They opened the ring, crying “ Land-girls ! Land 
Army ! Put the girls in too ; come on, dance round the 
girls ” 

Elizabeth and I, laughing, were borne into the middle 
of that circle ; our men joined hands and whirled around 

us with the others. R B. J. 4'JL , .. 

“ Dance, man, dance! Dance, Bobby; haven t you 
heard the news ? There’s a Peace on . . . No! You 
can’t have my stick — some girl’s snatched my perfectly 
good stick! My perfectly good stick that I’ve had 


THE VICTORY-DANCE 


353 


ever since the War ! . . . The War’s over l Come on, 
dance round the pretty Land-girls ! they helped to win 
it, too ! ” 

We laughed, my chum and I, but in our eyes tears 
danced with smiles, and in our hearts a thrill of pride 
was all astir as we murmured to each other, “ Did you 
hear that? It is true, isn’t it? We did do our little 
bit to help ! ” 


THE END 


























































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